The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy
At a New York auction house in 2012, an exquisite, 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton is fetching bids of more than a million dollars. But when the auction is suddenly interrupted by a call from the president of Mongolia, the skeleton’s seller, Eric Prokopi, feels his elation turn to panic. With the provenance and legality of the dinosaur in question, Prokopi’s world begins to fall apart.
As a young boy, Prokopi started his search for rare natural objects by diving for shark teeth in the waters of Florida. Decades later, his skills lead to a flourishing fossil business — including the murky morality of procuring and trading dinosaur bones for the rich and famous. When rumors of a complete T. Bataar skeleton reach him, Prokopi jets off to rural Mongolia, driven by the need to claim such a rare specimen for himself.
The Dinosaur Artist is the true and captivating story of ancient bones and black markets, international custody battles, and one man’s ill-fated and life-long obsession.
Quote:
“Photo after photo of skeleton after skeleton arrived in Eric’s AOL inbox. Some were nearly whole and others were in parts — femurs in crates, vertebrae in black garbage bags, other bits still in situ, surrounded by brushes, chisels, glue bottles, and men’s sandaled feet. Other bones lay on laminate or concrete flooring, or on a blanket or tarp. Eric recognized Gallimimus, a small-headed, long-necked, ostrich-like meat eater, this one curled up in a field jacket, its legs overrunning the plaster. There was Oviraptor and Protoceratops. Saurolophus bones had been arranged in a lifelike floor puzzle, in more or less the correct anatomical order. One photo showed a set of therizinosaur hands pieced together on bare earth, a cigarette pack thrown in for scale; their size was staggering — Therizinosaurus had forelimbs and hands as disproportionately gigantic as T. bataar’s and T. rex’s were small. The middle claw measured 30 inches, nearly the length of a yardstick or a Major League baseball bat.”
Author:
Paige Williams is an American journalist, author, and staff writer at The New Yorker. Her writing is included in the 2009 and 2011 editions of The Best American Magazine Writing and the 2003 and 2006 editions of The Best American Crime Writing. Her first book, The Dinosaur Artist, began as a 2013 New Yorker article titled "Bones of Contention.”
Published: 2018
Length: 277 pages
Set in: Florida, United States; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia