Archaeopteryx cast
© University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge 2013
Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales and Poet in Residence at the Museum of Zoology in Spring 2013, writes:
I am poet-in-residence in the Museum of Zoology for 10 precious days. In my first hour in the exhibition gallery I saw what is still my favourite treasure. It is the fossil of a bird, with a perfectly preserved impression made by its wing-feathers, like when you play ‘Making Angels’ in the snow, lying on your back and sweeping your arms to make wings. The Archaeopteryx is the earliest bird fossil, the size of the magpie that just left its impression in the snow on my lawn. The snow-shadow will melt. Stone has held the Archaeopteryx for millions of years, like a photograph of the Jurassic period. It makes me dizzy, just thinking about it.
I appreciate that it is purely conventional, but is it deliberate that this image is upside down from the way the other replica at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences is displayed, and (as far as I can tell!) the way the original is displayed in Berlin? When it was on display at the Museum of zoology, do you know which way round it was?