Have you ever been to the Field Museum? It is a very interesting and thought providing place. It’s more than just a gathering place for school nerds and scholars. It’s one of the main tourist and educational attractions in the city of Chicago. The Field Museum is filled with multiple exhibits. but I will be focusing on the main attractions of the museum. In other words, the most popular and recognizable things about the museum. The Field Museum is a very interesting place and you should try visit it at least in your life.
When you first enter the museum, the three biggest displays are in the lobby of the museum. There are two Native American Totem Poles, a full T-Rex fossil, and a recreation of an african elephant fight. The two Native American totem poles, both dating back to 1899, symbolize or commemorate cultural beliefs that recount family legends or notable events for a North American indian tribe. Sue, the dinosaur, is the largest complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the entire world. She was discovered in 1990 in South Dakota. An interesting fact about Sue, is that her real skull is on display in a separate exhibit because it weighs to much for the actual skeleton. The skull you see on the skeleton is a replica. The museum also has a recreation of what they believe Sue’s real face could have looked like. The third super huge artifact in the lobby of the museum is a sculpture named “Fighting African Elephants.” The name for the sculpture is very self-explanatory. It was one of the first displays to be placed in the Field Museum when it opened in 1909. It was created by Carl Akeley after he went on a safari trip to Africa and after witnessing a real African elephant fight, he decided to recreate the event in the form of a life like sculpture. These three displays are considered the “faces” of the museum.
Out of all the exhibits in the museum, the most popular is the “Evolving Planet” exhibit. It is a series of rooms that are filled with remains of life on Earth dating back to the dinosaurs, to the ice age, and to today. The exhibit starts with full dinosaur fossils, ranging from a T-Rex to a triceratops and a Brachiosaurus. After the dinosaurs, there are fossils that date back to the Ice Age. That part has tons of fossils, but the most notable are a woolly mammoth and a deer skeleton which is considered the biggest deer ever discovered. As you get towards the end of the exhibit, you will the different type of human remains. One of the glass cabinets contains a hymn and an ancient hominid, or cave man, skeleton side by side. The “Evolving Planet” exhibit is a must see, because it fits all of the life that has ever existed on Earth.
Another really cool thing about the Field Museum is the amount of taxidermy they have. For those, who do not know, taxidermy is when animals that were once living are stuff with certain chemicals and material and form the appearance that animal is still alive. There are hundreds of taxidermied animals ranging from penguins and hawks to lions, tigers, and bears. Taxidermy is a cool way to get up close to once living animals.
Along with all the taxidermied animals, there are two very famous taxidermied animals. There is a gorilla named Bushman and the Lions of Tsavo. Bushman the gorilla was brought to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago in 1930. He was hit with everyone who went to the zoo. When Bushman was thought to be dying, 120,000 went to say their last goodbyes to the gorilla. There is a story that a year or two before Bushman died, he escaped from his cage one night and openly roaming the zoo. He was eventually scared back to his cage by a gardener snake in the one of the exhibits. Authorities later made sure Bushman was safe and his cage was locked proper. Two years later in 1951, Bushman died and 200,000 people came to his wake and funeral at Lincoln Park Zoo. The Lincoln Park Zoo later donated his body to the Field Musuem for taxidermy after he died. The second famous taxidermy is the Lions of Tsavo. During December of 1898, two lions killed over 135 workers who were building a railroad between Kenya and Uganda. After months of militaristically trying to kill the lions, a cavalry of irishman military members killed the two lions. Their actual killer, Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, kept the skins of the lions as rugs for his house. 20 years later, he sold the skins for taxidermy to the Field Museum for $5,000. In 2015 dollars, that is about $67,000. Carl Akeley later made a sculpture about the Tsavo Lions. It depicted the Tsavo lions attacking the railroad workers. Bushman and the Lions of Tsavo are forms of animal history right before your eyes.
The Field Museum is truly an interesting place. It is filled with all sorts of exhibits about life on Earth’s past, present, and future. I strongly encourage you go the Field Museum some time in your life. You will not regret it.
No comments:
Post a Comment