Earlier this year I was recording an NSP album in Toronto and realized I was in striking distance of a famous Stegosaurus sculpture in Ithaca, New York. So on my day off, I hopped in a rental car and drove a few hours across the border. It was worth it! This paper mache model is over a hundred years old, and was made in 1904 for the St. Louis World’s Fair. It then found a home at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, and was displayed there for a century until that museum’s huge renovation in 2014. Later that year, the Stegosaurus was gifted to Ithaca’s Museum of the Earth where it has become one of the building’s center pieces. Much like the very first dinosaur sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in London, this model shows what scientists believed dinosaurs looked like at the time. Even in my lifetime, huge advancements have been made in our understanding of these animals, and modern representations of Stegosaurus portray a much more agile and less lumbering creature. There is a certain charm to outdated sculptures like this though. It shows how far we’ve come in our research, and how far we might still have to go.
Ithaca, NY – Ithaca’s Museum of the Earth
