All eyes were on what was billed as the first Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) skeleton to be sold in Asia at Christie’s Hong Kong autumn auction last November. Described as “well-preserved and quite solid”, the 66-million-year-old specimen, named Shen, which means “godlike” in Mandarin, was estimated to fetch between US$15 million and US$25 million. The auction house was set to mount the colossal skeleton—measuring 12.2 metres long, 4.6 metres high and 2.1 metres wide, and weighing 1,400kg—at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, alongside fine art paintings, for public viewing.
Only the world’s excitement was snuffed out in one fell swoop. Ten days before the scheduled sale on November 30, Christie’s withdrew the skeleton. Peter Larson, the founder of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, which specialises in the excavation and preparation of fossils, was as saying that Shen’s owner is “using Stan to sell a dinosaur that’s not Stan. It’s very misleading”.
