Come and help me with this beach find

[hedgehog]

My little mate from Swansea rang me one day and he was very excited, he had been out to Worms Head detecting with Roy the previous week (you on here Roy?) and the sand had been washed away by a storm he was convinced that it was a mammoths bone and wanted to move it off the beach before it disappeared again. He was getting quite frustrated by the whole thing because he had been in touch with Swansea museum and they apparently were not interested (short staffed more like). Anyway to cut a long story short I went down to help him recover the bone and Roy met us there. I had taken along a wheelbarrow and some rope and my mate had added some wheels to a ladder to aid the removal of the bone.
The nearest we could get to the bone was a car park behind the sand dunes and this seemed like half a mile away from where the bone actually was. We made our way to the area that the bone was last seen  (it was fortunately a nice sunny day!) and it quickly became apparent that the wave action had started to break the bone up. Well my mate was disappointed (I think he had been looking at the prices of complete mammoth bones on the net!)
Anyway we decided to try and load it on the wheel barrow (it was heavy, too heavy and big to just fit into the wheelbarrow, so we lashed the wheelbarrow and ladder contraptions together (first articulated wheelbarrow i've seen!) and started on the long and arduous journey across the beach to the car park. It took hours! it was exhausting but the challenge was on. A few people walking along the beach stopped to admire our impressive bone (and some dogs). By the time we got to the sand dunes we were worn out , but it still had to go through the soft sand pathway to the car park. We got it back to the car in the end, said our farewells to Roy (I think Roy had expected to do some detecting that day, much admiration to Roy for his stamina in the task). Anyway got the bone back to my mates place managed to heave it behind the small wall in his front garden and left in there in the knowledge that nobody would nick it because it was so damn heavy.
Dunno about the others but for the next couple of days I was aching as if i had been in the ring with Calzaghe. My mate did get the bone identified, it's still in his front garden. Here's some photos , do you know what it is ?

[simon c]

Look's very much like a Whale bone Steve Very nice find if it is though,and a hell of a good story.

[Neil]

I am no medical expert, but it reminds me of the the integrated vertibrae bones that protect the spinal chord on most animals - including human. Hell of a find and a great story.

You would have thought that the National Museum of Wales would have been chomping at the bit to investigate that - I give up sometimes, I really do!

Cracking post - keep us updated on the outcome.

Cheers
Neil

[PHIL YNYSBOETH]

Great story Steve !

Please keep us informed if you get any more info

Very interesting post

Regards Phil Jones