Africa, Madagascar, ca. 17th century CE or earlier. An amazing elephant bird (Aepyornis maximus) egg, roughly 200 times larger than a chicken egg. It has been reassembled from its cracked pieces into a complete egg. It can hold roughly 2 imperial gallons (9 liters) of liquid and a single one could feed over a hundred people. The birds went extinct sometime before the 17th century, either through over-hunting (particularly of the eggs) or through disease. This is a fragment from a mysterious creature! Size: 8.1" W x 12.5" H (20.6 cm x 31.8 cm)

Elephant birds are the largest bird to have ever lived; they grew to 10 feet tall and weighed around 1000 pounds. They were ratites (flightless birds), related to cassowaries, ostriches, and emus. Their name originates with a description of them written by Marco Polo, who had never seen the birds but had certainly heard of them. He wrote, "The people of the island [Madagascar] report that at a certain season of the year, an extraordinary kind of bird, which they call a rukh, makes its appearance from the southern region. In form is said to resemble the eagle, but it is incomparably greater in size; being so large and strong as to seize an elephant with its talons, and to lift it into the air, in order to drop it on the ground and in this way kill it." Of course, elephant birds did no such thing - they were flightless and herbivores - but their size was clearly a legend!

Elephant bird eggs were a food source in Madagascar for natives, and their shells were used to carry water and rum (natives of Madagascar brought the shells to Mauritius as containers for the alcohol they were buying there). When one of the shells came to Paris in 1851, it sparked a craze amongst Europeans to own them.

Provenance: private Illinois, USA collection

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#127481

Repaired from multiple pieces. Lucite stand not included.