Mammoth tusk actually a drainpipe!
Submitted by PaulM on Saturday, 13 September 2003 Page Views: 4971
DigsExcited museum staff thought a DIY builder had dug up a woolly mammoth tusk - until it was identified as an old drainpipe. Dudley Green believed he had stumbled across the 4ft Stone Age relic while building an extension to his home.Local museum keeper Ken Crowe and amateur geologist Jeff Saward both reckoned it was a 20,000-year-old mammoth tusk and started making plans to excavate it.
The historians were ready to encase the "tusk" in foam and tin foil and begin the delicate operation to recover it from the ground and put it on public display.
But the excavation was abandoned when a closer look revealed it was a white clay drainage pipe, used in the former orchard on which Dudley's house now stands.
Dudley, 67, from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, said: "The museum people were very excited. They were convinced it was a real tusk and said it was the best example they'd ever seen.
"They were very enthusiastic and wanted to reassemble it and display it. I was really chuffed to think I had dug up something so important in my garden."
The mistake was discovered when a fragment of the Victorian pipe was examined and found to be hollow - unlike a tusk.
Embarrassed Mr Saward said: "Even experts are fooled sometimes."
Source: The Mirror 13 September 2003
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