Dippy (statue)
40°26′37″N 79°57′05″W / 40.443530°N 79.951503°W
Dippy is a landmark public sculpture of a Diplodocus dinosaur on Schenley Plaza in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
Sited along Forbes Avenue near the entrance of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the life-size fiberglass model depicts Diplodocus carnegii, a species named for Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), the Scottish-American industrialist. The dark, grayish brown sculpture weighs 3,000 pounds, stands 22 feet, and measures 84 feet in length.
History
Dippy was created in 1999 by the Carnegie Museums in tribute to the 100th anniversary of an expedition—financed by Andrew Carnegie—which discovered Diplodicus fossils in the badlands of Wyoming.
The best specimen the team uncovered on July 4, 1899 was a nearly complete fossil skeleton of Diplodicus. Team member Arthur Coggeshall joked that the fossil should be called "Star-Spangled Dinosaur", because of its July 4th finding. Carnegie's friends, however, dubbed it "Dippy", which was first displayed to great acclaim in 1907. The name has stuck ever since.
The English King Edward VII, when he visited at Carnegie's Skibo Castle in Scotland, asked for a plaster cast to be displayed in London. Soon Kaiser Wilhelm II and other European heads of state asked for copies. Even 100 years later copies of "Dippy" are displayed in the Natural History Museum in London, the Natural Science Museum in Madrid, Spain, the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Dippy the sculpture was created during a nine-month process from the original fossil, which still stands indoors in the museum's Dinosaur Hall.
In addition to its service as a mascot for the museum, Dippy during football season can be seen sporting the Terrible Towel or colors of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the University of Pittsburgh.
Criticism
The name of the sculpture is the same as the name of the skeleton at the Natural History Museum in London. Some groups have campaigned for a name change as they want Dippy to be unique.
References
- Bob Batz, Jr. (1999). Dippy the dinosaur sculpture installation: story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved May 16, 2007.
- Rea, Tom (2001). Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-4173-2.