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Witness History

The Discovery of Dinosaur Eggs

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2018

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The discovery of a nest of complete dinosaur eggs in Mongolia in 1923 provided the first proof that the prehistoric creatures hatched out of eggs rather than giving birth to live young. The American explorer who found them, Roy Chapman Andrews, became a legend and many consider him the inspiration for the film hero Indiana Jones. Claire Bowes spoke to his granddaughter, Sara Appelbee.

Photo: Roy Chapman Andrews examining first find of dinosaur eggs by George Olsen, Mongolia, 1925 (courtesy of AMNH Research Library)

Audio of Roy Chapman Andrews courtesy of Marr Sound Archives, UMKC University Libraries.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more auction. Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.2

Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Claire Bowes.

0:36.0

And today we go back to the start of the 20th century and a moment which changed our understanding of the natural world, when an American explorer discovered a nest of fossilized dinosaur eggs.

0:48.0

His name was Roy Chapman Andrews, and many consider him the inspiration for the film hero Indiana Jones.

0:55.0

Well, a particular picture where he's wearing the gun belt and the hat and the boots, hands on his hips and his feet apart, and he's got this sort of funny grin on his face, he's standing in the desert and I thought you know

1:15.9

he does look like Indiana Jones.

1:18.2

Sarah Appleby is Roy Chapman Andrews granddaughter.

1:21.5

There were things in the house that he had kept from his travels

1:25.5

and also a clutch of the dinosaur eggs that he had found in a glass domed display case, things that my friends' grandfathers didn't have in their houses.

1:38.1

He was a celebrity, especially in the years when he was unmarried.

1:42.2

He was rather a heartthrob people

1:44.2

clamoring to compete to be on his expeditions and so forth and

1:48.4

and Ann Borsam who's written about Roy Chapman Andrews says although no one's ever confirmed he's the

1:54.0

inspiration for Indiana Jones, both risked life and limb for their work. There's

1:59.2

this wonderful quote that he had in the first 15 years of field work I can remember just 10 times

...

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