Bones of disputed dinosaur to be auctioned off

Cut off in the prime of life 65 million years ago, chiseled from a butte in South Dakota in 1990 and seized by the FBI two years later, Sue the Tyrannosaur is headed for the auction block at Sotheby's. She may bring well over $1 million, which would be the highest price ever paid for a fossil.

The auction will be held next spring in New York City. David Redden, a Southeby's vice president, said in an interview that the exact date would depend on how long it took to remove the huge bones from the rock in which they are embedded.

For the last four years, Sue has been the focus of bitter legal battles involving commercial fossil dealers, academic paleontologists, a Sioux Indian, the National Guard, several government agencies and the Department of Justice.

The fossil dealer who excavated the dinosaur, Peter L. Larson, is serving a two-year sentence at a federal prison camp. Legal documents generated by disputes over the dinosaur and criminal charges related to its seizure fill a storeroom, and the rights of fossil prospectors to hunt on federal land remain the subject of bitter contention.

In the forthcoming Sotheby's catalogue, Sue will be listed as "Property of the United States of America in Trust for Maurice Williams of Faith, South Dakota.'' The United States, in this case, is the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which gave permission to Williams, a Sioux, to sell the fossil and keep the proceeds.

The dinosaur, which is about 50 feet long, has been described by paleontologists as the most complete and best articulated skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. Even small bones from the ears, head and vertebrae have been preserved in such detail that experts were able to guess that she was a middle-aged female.

Although no fossil of such scientific and commercial importance has ever been on the open market before, Redden said, its value is estimated at "$1 million plus.'' Several paleontologists said the bones might bring up to $5 million, but others said the price might be much lower.

"It's going to cost Sotheby's about a half million dollars to clean those bones, and the dinosaur bone market has been depressed by a lot of recent tyrannosaur discoveries,'' said Dr. Donald L. Wolberg, a paleontologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. "They'll never get $1 million, and it's really sad that Sue has come to this.''

Sotheby's does not intend to assemble the gigantic skeleton, but will dislodge the bones from the stony matrix in which they are embedded, and clean them under supervision.

The dinosaur arrived in New York from impoundment by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Rapid City, S.D., two weeks ago in 135 boxes, and the FBI seal on the box containing the fully cleaned skull was broken last Wednesday in preparation for the auction.

In principle, Sue could be bought by anyone or any institution for any purpose, including resale by a commercial dealer. When the dinosaur was seized by the federal government in 1992, the U.S. attorney and several paleontologists insisted that all fossils collected on federal land should remain accessible to the American people, and that Sue should not leave the country.

But since then, a series of court decisions has assigned legal ownership of the bones to Williams, who was approached by Sotheby's in a move to handle the sale of his dinosaur. As a result of the auction, Sue could end up in Japan, where dinosaur fossils are in great demand, or anywhere else.

But to make it easier for Sue to remain an American, Redden said, Sotheby's has imposed an extremely unusual condition for the auction: Any U.S. institution that submits a winning bid will be granted an extended payment plan, by which the fossil can be bought in installments over three years. No foreign institution or individual will have this privilege.

"As you can see,'' Redden said, "we are throwing down a challenge to America's institutions to keep Sue in the United States.''