Christie's interiors auction to star dinosaur leg, elephant bird egg

The left leg of a tarbosaurus is expected to star among a superb assortment of collectible extinct artefacts at Christie's Interiors: Style and Spirit auction on May 22 in London.

The 4.5 foot-high leg comes to auction with a £30,000-50,000 estimate.

Elephant bird egg
The elephant bird was last seen in the
17th century

"Pre-dating its famous North American relative the tyrannosaurus rex the two bear many similarities, despite roaming the earth around two to five million years apart," says Christie's.

The carnivore was active in Asia during the late Cretaceous period, around 70 million years ago.

Its sale follows that of Samantha the triceratops, whose skull made $30,000 earlier this month.

More than 300 lots will feature at the auction, including a pair of double curved woolly mammoth tusks, valued at £15,000-25,000.

The 55 inch specimens once belonged to a mammuthus primigeniu, which last roamed the Earth in around 1,700 BC.

"Dark in colour, apparently due to the diet of this particular mammoth, a complete pair has not been offered at Christie's in recent memory," the auction house states.

A single tusk sold at Christie's in September 2011 for £7,500.

An elephant bird egg, estimated at £10,000-15,000, will also star.

The elephant bird, a native of Madagascar, could grow to twice the height of a man and was the largest bird to have ever lived. It became extinct in the 17th century. Its eggs were 160 times larger than those of a chicken.

We will bring you full results from this most eclectic of interior design sales later in the month.


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