in Aathal, Switzerland

JOHN S. WHITEPO Box 332Stewartstown, Pennsylvania 17363john@jwkustos.com

Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy Sauriermuseum

John S. White, a consulting editor of Rocks & Minerals, operates Kustos, a museum/col-lector consulting business. Now retired, he is the former curator-in-charge of the National Mineral and Gem Collection at the Smithso-nian Institution.

56 ROCKS & MINERALS

And

The Dinosaur Museum (Sauriermuseum)

Figure 1 (right). The main hall at the Sauriermuseum features a number

of dinosaurs collected by Kirby. From left to right on the back wall:

Camptosaurus (“Arky”), Allosaurus (“Big Al Two”), and Camarasaurus (“E.T.”). In the foreground is a cast

of Diplodocus (“H.Q. One”). The actual dinosaur is displayed on the

floor behind this replica.

Figure 2 (below). The Siber brothers converted a defunct textile factory into a dinosaur museum in Aathal, Switzerland.

Dr. Hans-Jakob Siber

Volume 90, January/February 2015 57

Hidden away in the modest mountains along a rural road in Aathal, North-ern Switzerland, less than a half-hour’s drive

from Zurich, is, in my opinion, one of the most extraordi-nary museums ever created. It is, to a very large extent, the product of the exceptional efforts of one remarkable man: Dr. Hans-Jakob “Kirby” Siber. (The name Kirby is an Angliciza-tion of his Swiss nickname Köbi.) Kirby and his father, Hans (1905–1979), started a natural science business, Siber+Siber Mineralien und Fossilien AG, in 1964 by opening a shop in Zurich. Kirby had already long been collecting “rocks,” and he was able to get his father interested in them as well. Mostly through the efforts of Kirby, with support from his brother Edy beginning in 1967, the business gained international stature. After twenty-eight years in the business, Kirby’s true obsession had switched to unearthing dinosaurs and other large vertebrate fossils. He began in 1970 by digging Eocene fossil fish in Wyoming, then joined dinosaur excavations in the northern United States; he developed his dinosaur dig-ging skills in 1985 in coastal Peru where he unearthed several immense whale skeletons. In 2014 Siber+Siber celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, making it one of the oldest mineral en-terprises still in business.

In 1989 Kirby returned to Wyoming and began excavat-ing dinosaurs at the Howe Ranch, near the small town of Shell, Big Horn County. He knew about this site from a book written by R. T. Bird, Bones for Barnum Brown (1985). Brown was a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natu-ral History (in New York City) who led a team of Ameri-can scientists and volunteers on a six-month dig at the Howe Ranch in 1934 (Bird 1985). They retrieved some four thousand dinosaur bones that were sent back to New York to be studied, about 90 percent of which were destroyed in a fire at the museum. When Kirby re-turned to the site, he had no idea if he would find more di-nosaurs, but if he did, his intention initially was to sell some and to keep the rest.

Digging at the old Howe quarry was not very productive, so Kirby’s team prospected the area and discovered another site 450 meters away that was rich in fossils; this became the Howe Stephens quarry. Between 1990 and 2003 Kirby and his colleagues found nearly fifteen skeletons, five of them complete, plus a number of separate bones in the area around Howe Ranch. The major finds included eight sauro-

pods, two ornothopods, three stegosaurs, and one theropod. As it turned out, he soon began to realize that what he re-ally wanted to do was to be able to display what he collected, and at that point the idea of a permanent dinosaur museum was born. Kirby still has a team that works in Wyoming ev-ery summer, since 2010 in the Dana quarry, near Ten Sleep, Washakie County.

Once Kirby decided that he wanted to create a museum, there was no stop-ping him. He was able to acquire a large vacant fac-tory building (fig. 2) in Aathal, directly across the road from his mineral, gem, and fossil business, Siber+Siber, and in 1991 the doors of the new museum opened to the public. Through the years the exhibit has been anything but static. It has evolved through the continuous up-grading of the exhib-its and the addition of new discoveries.

The MuseumIn the museum there are nine fully mounted dinosaurs,

soon to be ten, several of which are immense. The two larg-est are Diplodocus (17 meters), and Camarasaurus (10 me-ters). All but one of the nine were recovered in the field by Kirby and his team. The dinosaurs are anywhere from 50 to 95 percent actual bone, and the Allosaurus, which is 95 percent complete, is the most complete example of this di-

Figure 3. Dr. Hans-Jakob “Kirby” Siber started out as a mineral dealer and later became interested in paleontology. In 2010, the University of Zurich, Switzerland, awarded him an honorary doctor’s degree for his outstanding work with dinosaurs.

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Figure 4. For more than twenty years Kirby Siber participated in and organized dinosaur digs. Here he is with his group of diggers in 2013 at the Dana quarry near Ten Sleep, Wyoming. Othmar Zeder photo.

Figure 5. Kirby’s pride and joy is the 25-foot-long skeleton of an Allosaurus named “Big Al Two.” It is more than 90 percent complete (actual fossil bones) and has attracted the atten-tion of the international dinosaur community as well as the scientific world.

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Figure 6 (left). This skeleton of a 17-meter-long Diplodo-cus was excavated in 1991 by Kirby and his team at the famous Howe quarry in Wyoming.

Figure 7 (below). The general museum map (drawn by the well-known cartoonist Marcel Vanek) shows the different sections of the museum, which consists of two halls with original dinosaurs, all collected by Kirby and his crew, plus fifteen dinosaur-related special exhibits including dinosaur footprints, dinosaur extinction, dinosaurs of Switzerland, and other European dinosaurs as well as exhibits about flying reptiles and extinct marine reptiles of the Mesozoic. The museum also features a preparation lab, a room showing amber with inclusions, a children’s play area, a cafeteria, and a large museum shop. (1) Ancient sea monsters; (2) Dinosaurs of Switzerland; (3) Masterpieces of nature; (4) A whale from the desert; (5) Dinosaur diggers at work; (6) Dinomania pavilion; (7) Brachiosaurus from Tendaguru; (8) Evolution of the dinosaurs; (9) Ankylosaurs; (10) Eggs, embryos, and babies; (11) Footsteps of the giants; (12) Demise of the dinosaurs; (13) Feathered dinosaurs; (14) Punk in dinoland; (15) Howe Ranch dinosaurs; (16) Dino Giardino playground; (17) Dinosaurs in the movies; (18) Skulls of the giants; (19) Flying reptiles; (20) Preparation laboratories; (21) Kids’ dino test corner.

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nosaur ever found. One of the dinosaurs, Kaatedocus siberi (which means “the small Diplodocus of Siber”), was named after Kirby. With fourteen perfectly preserved vertebrae, the recently named specimen’s neck is reportedly the most in-tact of its kind in the world and has brought international renown to the Aathal Dinosaur Museum (fig. 8). Included in the display is a partially exposed skeleton of Othnielosaurus, with the bones still mostly embedded in matrix.

Recovering dinosaurs that are embedded in tough rock is much more complicated than simply removing the bones in the field and shipping them back to a museum. The bones can be delicate, making bone extraction a difficult and te-dious job; thus most of it is done in a laboratory with high-

tech equipment. So, for the most part, once a skeleton has been ex-posed, sections of it are isolated in large blocks, often reinforced in plaster, and then these blocks have to be shipped, in this case, to Swit-zerland. With a large dinosaur this can involve many tons of material.

The museum employs as many as six preparators, at times, and the laboratory, the Präparatorium, in which they work, can be viewed behind glass on the second floor of the museum. These highly trained specialists also participate in ex-tracting the dinosaurs in the field along with Kirby and, very often, a sizable group of volunteers. The museum has fourteen permanent staff members.

One small gallery that stands out in my memory from my Octo-

ber 2013 visit, even given the excellence of all of the others, is the “Masterpiece Gallery.” Here are displayed approximately fifty exquisite individual fossils. In many instances there is only one stunning large fossil in each wall case (figs. 9 and 10), and each is indeed a masterpiece, surely one of the finest assemblies of individual fossils that one can hope to see, all acquired by Kirby over many decades.

The labels in the museum are all in German, but visitors can obtain printed guides upon entry with translations in French, Italian, and English.

Although the vast majority of Rocks & Minerals readers are primarily interested in minerals, I suggest that this mu-seum is so very exceptional that most mineral collectors will

Figure 8. Kaatedocus siberi was named in 2012 to honor Kirby for his efforts to collect, pre-serve, and display dinosaurs and for making his finds available for scientific studies. Kaatedo-cus siberi means “the little Diplodocus of Siber.”

Figures 9 and 10. Two excellent specimens seen in the gallery called “The Masterpieces” are a spectacular ammonite (Placenticeras meeki) from South Dakota and a charming coral fish (Mene rhombia) from the famous Eocene locality of Bolca, Italy.

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find it well worth a visit if traveling in Europe. The educa-tional content is brilliantly done, but there also are minerals to be seen. For much of his life Kirby, with his brother Edy, collected gold specimens, and his gold collection is superb (fig. 11). It can be viewed in a small gallery in the Siber+Siber building across the road from the museum. This building also houses an excellent inventory of worldwide minerals,

including a fine assortment of Swiss quartzes, and finished jewelry that are for sale. Next to this building is the “gem house” where one will find everything from rough gem ma-terial to cut gems and lapidary equipment.

What Kirby has created in Aathal is a world-class dino-saur museum; it is world class in every sense of the phrase, and it was done without any public funding! Many large in-stitutional or municipal museums have spent millions on their dinosaur halls, but none that I have seen come close to what Kirby has achieved with the Sauriermuseum.

Kirby was awarded an honorary PhD from Zurich Uni-versity in 2010 for his outstanding work with dinosaurs. In the words of Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischer, rector of the univer-sity: “I am convinced that the faculty made a happy choice in nominating you. I heartily congratulate you. The honor acknowledges your great achievements in the field of prehis-tory research.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI am grateful to Urs Moeckli, Sauriermuseum in Aathal, for pro-

viding most of the excellent photographs, except where noted, and to Kirby Siber for helping with the manuscript, making certain that all of the facts are correct. William Besse provided the map showing the location of Aathal and adapted the Marcel Vanek drawing of the museum map for publication.

REFERENCEBird, R. T. 1985. Bones for Barnum Brown. Austin: University of

Texas Press. ❑

VISITOR INFORMATION

Address: 69 Zürichstrasse, Aathal, Switzerland CH-8607

Website: www.sauriermuseum.ch

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays

Admission: A modest fee is charged (in Swiss francs), with reduced rates for children, the handicapped, and the elderly

Arrival by car: The museum is on the main road between Uster and Wetzikon. Free car and bus parking.

Arrival by train: Aathal can be reached by the S-Bahn (S14). Trains leave every half-hour from the main station in Zurich. After debarking, follow signs to the museum, a ten-minute walk.

Figure 11. The Siber gold collection is housed just opposite the Sauriermuseum in the Siber+Siber mineral, fossil, and gem building. The gold collection is an attraction by itself and fea-tures crystallized gold and gold nuggets from around the world, notably from California and various European localities, includ-ing gold from the Alps.