During the initial stages of research, it became clear that fossil fish slabs from Dura Den had been dispersed around the world. We used e-mail discussion groups to call a search for other institutions with Dura Den fossils in their collections. In return, the museum would help provenance specimens, if required.
When these fossils were first excavated and collected 150 years ago, documentation was not as rigorous as it is now, and many specimens got "lost", in the sense that although they may exist, they have no accompanying information about when, by whom, or exactly where, they were found - all pieces of evidence needed to build up a complete retrospective map of the Dura Den site
A start has already been made with the slabs and other related items on display. Through examination and comparison, we have been able to pass on information to other curators of collections.
An album of photographs and site reports presented to Mr. Bayne-Meldrum, then landowner at Dura Den, by the British Association in 1915, has confirmed that two slabs held by the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Edinburgh were certainly excavated during the Association's excavations between 1912 - 1914. The slabs were all photographed and numbered on their faces with heavy black paint. The system is very distinctive. A slab on loan from Perth and Kinross Arts and Heritage Department, documented as having been donated as a result of this excavation, is clearly numbered '26' in this way.
Fife Council Museums East has, in its collections, a letter written by the Rev. Dr. John Anderson, the first person to bring attention to the Dura Den site, to his grandchildren Maggie and Johnny. It describes a day's outing at Dura Den, in the company of Lord and Lady Kinnaird and Sir Roderick Murchison, among others. This episode was later recounted in Dr. Anderson's monograph Dura Den The yellow sandstone and its remarkable fossil remains.
The handwriting closely matches that on two inquiry labels attached to slabs from Dundee City Council Arts and Heritage Department, "Is this Glyptoloemus Kinnairdi?" and the University of St. Andrews Museum Collections, "A new Glyptoloemus? ". These labels indicate that Dr. Anderson was planning to have them sent away for comparison against type specimens, many of which were in Lord Kinnaird's collection.
But best of all has been finding John Anderson's puddocks (Lallans: frogs).
In his letter, he writes "My dearest Johnny, I have to tell you for granny's sake, that we saw no puddocks...". It had struck us as odd that granny had been interested in frogs. But it became clear while researching one of the slabs on loan from the Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland.
One of the rarer and, in its time, more controversial species of fish found at Dura Den is Bothriolepis. The slab on loan shows a group of half-a-dozen, and it is marked as being part of Dr. John Anderson's collection. It is one of two pieces to survive after the species was first discovered in 1837. Dr. Anderson gifted it to The Highland and Agricultural Society in 1858, from where it was transferred to the National Museums of Scotland collections.
Before they were determined to be a species of fish, Dr. Anderson himself wrote about Bothriolepis as being 'beetles', but when they first came to light on a large, newly-opened slab, they were described by Anderson as a shoal of "frog-like creatures".
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We have no provenance for four slabs on loan from the University of St. Andrews Museum Collections, and normally on display at the Bell Pettigrew Museum. However, we can tell quite a lot from them.
Their squared finish and chisel marks indicate that they may have been excavated during the same expedition. The stone is in a similar state of preservation.
The slab of five Holoptychius flemingi has a ?penciled number on its top side: XVI. This has been written in a hand like that of Dr. Heddle in his report of the (St. Andrews Literary and Philosophical) Society's digging at Dura Den in the summer of 1860. This deduction is rather tenuous, but specimens of these species and genus are listed in his report.
28th January, 1999
The mason's mark on a fossil fish slab on display in the exhibition, and initially thought to be unique, has also been discovered on a slab on display in the new National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. The Edinburgh slab was part of a large wall-mounted display known as 'the wall of death'. This display was partly dismantled to allow one slab into the new natural history section, and is now displayed in a desk top case. The same mason's mark is now clearly visible on its front edge.
The Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland were given the slabs in this collection by the Bell Pettigrew Museum in the 1960s, and the records in Edinburgh show that they were part of the group obtained from Professor Heddle's expedition of 1861.
29th January 1999
More information from the Department of Palaeontology at the National Museums of Scotland has been received, which shows that some of their collection of slabs from Dr. Heddle's expedition in 1861 are marked with roman numerals. This indicates that we have made a correct assumption about the similarly marked specimen in case 1.
30th January 1999
The 1907 inventory of fossil fishes (above), in the handwriting of ?Professor W.C. MacIntosh. The description of slab no. XVI in this list matches the slab of that number on display.
Although it is extremely difficult to tell from roman numerals only, it would still appear that the original numbering was done by Dr. Heddle rather than MacIntosh, if only because Heddle's method is more precise and less flamboyant than that of MacIntosh.