The skull of a T. rex skeleton named Trinity sold at auction in Switzerland for more than $5 million.
(Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)
Nearly 300 T. rex bones dug up from three US sites were assembled into a single skeleton dubbed “Trinity.”
The skeleton was auctioned off in Switzerland, selling for more than $5 million.
The buyer, a Belgian art non-profit, plans to exhibit the skeleton in Europe’s oldest skyscraper.
BERLIN (AP) — A Swiss auction house that sold a composite Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for over $5 million this week said Friday that the new owner, a Belgian art foundation, will exhibit the fearsome dinosaur at a new cultural center in Antwerp.
The skeleton, made up of nearly 300 bones dug up from three sites in the United States, fetched 4.8 million francs ($5.3 million) at the Koller auction house in Zurich on Tuesday. It was the first time such a T. rex skeleton was put up for auction in Europe. Including the “buyer’s premium” and fees, the sale came to 5.5 million Swiss francs (about $6.1 million), Koller said. The anticipated sales price had been 5 million to 8 million francs.
The Koller auction house in Zurich identified the new owner as The Phoebus Foundation, which is backed by the engineering and logistics conglomerate Katoen Natie-Indaver.
Auction promoters said the composite T. rex, dubbed “Trinity,” was built from specimens retrieved from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations of Montana and Wyoming between 2008 and 2013.
Koller said “original bone material” comprised more than half of the restored skeleton. The auction house said the skull was particularly rare and also remarkably well-preserved.
“When dinosaurs died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods, they often lost their heads during deposition (of the remains into rocks). In fact, most dinosaurs are found without their skulls,” said Nils Knoetschke, a scientific adviser who was quoted in the auction catalog. “But here we have truly original Tyrannosaurus skull bones that all originate from the same specimen.”
T. rex roamed the Earth between 65 million and 67 million years ago. A study published two years ago in the journal Science estimated that about 2.5 billion of the dinosaurs ever lived. Hollywood movies such as the blockbuster “Jurassic Park” franchise have added to the public fascination with the carnivorous creature.
The two areas the bones for Trinity came from were also the source of other T. rex skeletons that were auctioned off, according to Koller: Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History bought “Sue” for $8.4 million over a quarter-century ago, and “Stan” sold for nearly $32 million three years ago.
Two years ago, a triceratops skeleton that the Guinness World Records declared as the world’s biggest, known as “Big John,” was sold for 6.6 million euros ($7.2 million) to a private collector at a Paris auction.
The non-profit art foundation plans to put the skeleton, nicknamed Trinity, on show at the Boerentoren tower in Antwerp. The art deco building, which is considered Europe’s oldest skyscraper, is being transformed into a cultural venue by architect Daniel Libeskind.