Yes, the dinosaurs really did exist

Rym Ghazal

• Last Updated: November 05. 2009 12:44AM UAE / November 4. 2009 8:44PM GMT

The man who brought the skeleton of an apatosaurus to Abu Dhabi airport said he wanted to educate people about that part of history. It was just the beginning. His next project is a hall of fossils that will document more than 40 of the creatures. Rym Ghazal reports

From his ornate cushioned chair, Khalid Siddiq al Mutawaa has a hard time picking out his favourite antique as he scans over dozens of statues, Oriental paintings, instruments and all sorts of trinkets, some hundreds of years old.

Then his eyes fall on one particular item, even more ancient: “Would you like a dinosaur tooth?”

Mr al Mutawaa, 48, a self-taught antiques dealer, was the man who brought the first dinosaur to the UAE, and he is planning to bring over at least 40 more.

“I kept hearing people and especially children say that there is no such thing as a dinosaur,” Mr al Mutawaa said.

“That really bothered me and so I brought over a dinosaur for our people to see, and everyone else who happens to pass by through here, to learn more about that part of our global history.”

Using his contacts in the US, Mr al Mutawaa brought over “Einstein”, a 140-million-year-old dinosaur, and put the 23-metre, 4.5-tonne skeleton of an apatosaurus, also known as brontosaurus, on display in the arrivals hall of Abu Dhabi International Airport in August 2008.

“I was getting phone calls from families here telling me how their children were excited about seeing a dinosaur they studied in their textbooks and watched on TV come alive in front of their eyes,” he said. “ It was a learning experience for all of us.”

He said he wanted the skeleton to be mostly real fossils, “so people don’t say it is just a plastic fake figure. I also chose this particular dinosaur as it looks like a camel”.

Eighty-five per cent of the assembled skeleton was composed of original bones, whereas on average, Mr al Mutawaa said, most dinosaur skeletons recovered are only about 65 per cent real bone.

“All of this makes Einstein the most complete apatosaurus ever discovered and one of the most authentic assembled dinosaurs ever displayed in the Middle East,” he said.

Einstein is a long-necked vegetarian that lived during the Jurassic period. The name apatosaurus comes from the Greek word for “deceptive”, referring to the difficulty palaeontologists first had in identifying the dinosaur’s bones.

Einstein, a juvenile, was discovered in the American West and then carefully transported in 10 cargo crates to Abu Dhabi, courtesy of Abu Dhabi Airports Company and Etihad Airways.

The skeleton was accompanied and reconstructed by a team of palaeontologists in under a day.

The apatosaurus was valued at US$2 million (Dh7.3m), and it was hoped that the bones could be auctioned off to raise money for endangered species of Arabian wildlife, but the plan fell through and Einstein went back to the US after being on display for more than a year.

It is estimated by airport authorities that Einstein was viewed by at least 2.3m visitors. Now, Mr al Mutawaa hopes to open a natural history museum.

“Understanding the history of man and the history of our planet enriches our understanding of where we are now and where are we heading,” Mr al Mutawaa said.

“Serious matters like climate change and natural disasters will make more sense if we understand the story behind life itself.” In co-operation with the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Mr al Mutawaa is planning to set up a massive hall of fossils with more than 40 dinosaurs, documenting every aspect of their life, plus different interactive halls on different natural themes like geology, plant and animal histories, space and astronomy. The different forms of energy, including solar and oil, will be included, too.

“We are the land of the black oil and most don’t even know how oil is created and why this area is abundant with it,” he said. “It would be great to know more about our land’s history.”

Mr al Mutawaa first fell in love with antiquities on a trip to Egypt, where, as a child, he was fascinated with the displays from the Pharoahs’ time. Ever since, he has been collecting antiques from the region.

“There is nothing worse than those antique smugglers who steal a country’s history by selling off their national treasures,” he said.

“The fakes out there have also been killing the value of antiques and make people appreciate the originals even less as they would have seen replicas.”

Touching an unfinished Greek statue of a woman, Mr al Mutawaa said: “Look at this, look at how an original feels. There is a story behind it, and that is what makes it even more beautiful.”

Besides his mission to rekindle interest in natural history, Mr al Mutawaa is using his knowledge to build modern Emirati antiques like silver dates, Jirz (a traditional mountain axe) and falcon sculptures, which he gives away as gifts to foreign delegations that visit the UAE.

“Visitors here want to leave with something unique to this place and, slowly, people here will realise what is unique to the world is our own national antiques,” he said.

“The antique is the only thing whose value increases as it gets old. Bones of our ancestors and the animals that once roamed the land are priceless.”

rghazal@thenational.ae