The bones are plenty cool, but I’m just blown away that they find entire animals preserved from time to time (the hair, the meat—everything). One of the most dramatic was a baby of about 220 lbs. She was 40,000 years old.
So I got interested and poked around online a bit. I learned that the woolly mammoth went extinct quite recently—less than 4,000 years ago. I learned that scientists believe that the unusual shape and large size of their tusks was probably an adaptation to dig in snow for food. I was most intrigued by the fact that the restrictions on buying and selling elephant ivory do not apply to woolly mammoth ivory, and that the House of Staunton actually produces a chess set made of it:
Now the House of Staunton is one of the most respected chess houses there is, and coincidentally, about six miles up the road. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen of the Internets: the finest chess pieces in the world come from Alabama. (We built your Mercedes-Benz M-Class too, by the way.) I thought I’d have a look at the woolly mammoth set tonight, and it seems it’s $12,999. That’s a little more than $382 per piece.
Now I won’t say never, but I’ll say it’s not looking promising for this year.
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I don’t play chess.
I’ve never seen a wooly mammoth.
I do own several dork hats, however.