Half a million buys a lot of bones

Mammoth skeleton sets auction record – Boston.com

On Monday, a rare Siberian mammoth skeleton sold for nearly half a million dollars at auction. The skeleton was inexplicably named “The President.”

A number of other curiosity-cabinet staples, like a bezoar, also sold, racking up a total of $1.5 million. The auction is a sign of increasing interest in natural history collectibles. Scientists complain such specimens shouldn’t be sold to private collectors, where they become inaccessible to researchers, but at these prices museums can’t compete. And as with early 20th century art, it seems provenance problems follow skyrocketing prices. A Russian official has challenged the origin of auctioned fossils.

PS. The first line of the Wikipedia article I linked for bezoar is perfectly indicative of the Wikipedia accessibility problem:

“A bezoar or enterolith is a sort of calculus or concretion, a stone found in the intestines of mostly ruminant animal.”

Oh, of course. I’m sure everyone gets it now. It’s something to do with math!