Eggs Over Hard

Some look like cannonballs in clusters. Others look like enlarged cigars.

The smooth inner shell reinforced with quartz deposits barely shines through the textured outer rock shell of the dozen dinosaur eggs on display at Chapman University’s Argyros Forum, where they will be on display until the end of September.

The eggs, which many liken to a piece of ancient sculpture, are believed to be the last remains of dinosaur history. There are 120 in all.

Estimated to be 60 million to 110 million years old, the eggs represent three species of dinosaurs--ornithopods, sauropods and theropods--and are believed to contain embryos from the last era of dinosaur existence--the Cretaceous period.

The eggs are part of the largest undisturbed nest of dinosaur eggs yet to be discovered, according to Lee Schiel, 1980 Chapman alumnus and art dealer who is responsible for bringing the eggs to Orange County. A Hong Kong exporter who owns the eggs has allowed Schiel to display them throughout the country, and Schiel said he will search for a buyer.

“Have you ever seen a dinosaur egg?” said Ruth Wardwell, a university spokeswoman. “Who isn’t interested in dinosaurs? Heck, Steven Spielberg made a movie.”

The eggs were first spotted in 1991 by a farmer in Henan province in central China and were quickly plundered by villagers, who sold them for $1 each. Soon the Chinese government got involved, banning sale of the eggs, declaring them a national treasure and setting up a small research facility near the site. By 1993, the government had confiscated 3,000 of the smuggled eggs.

The exhibit has drawn its measure of critics. Although Schiel says the fossil eggs were legally obtained and claims to have the proper documentation from the U.S. and Chinese governments to approve their transport, others are not so sure.

“No such document can guarantee it’s legal,” said Zhonghe Zhou, a paleontologist and associate professor in Beijing. Zhou is completing his doctorate at the University of Kansas.

Paleontologists agree that the private collections of vertebrate fossils, such as those on display at Chapman, deprive them of adequate research opportunities and diminish the fossils’ scientific value.

In 1989, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists, a worldwide organization, passed a resolution protesting the private sale of irreplaceable vertebrate fossils.

“Once these are picked by farmers and entrepreneurs, the most important scientific data is lost already,” said J.D. Stewart, assistant curator at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, who inspected Schiel’s eggs in April. “The most you can do is to study the egg shape and composition and the shell type.”

Display of scientific artifacts is educational if accompanied by properly documented data, Stewart said, but without it, “it becomes art.”

Nevertheless, Schiel plans to tour the eggs for several months, preferably at educational institutions before he sells them off.

The Chapman exhibit runs seven days a week through Sept. 30 and admission is free.

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Inside Information

Highlights of dinosaur egg fossils on display at Chapman University:

* Discovered in 1991 in Henan province in central China by a farmer.

* Believed to be from a nesting site measuring 40 square kilometers.

* Laid 65 million to 110 million years ago by dinosaurs from at least three species: ornithopods, sauropods and theropods, during the late Cretaceous period.

* Embryo remains may be contained inside some eggs.

* Of the 120 eggs in the collection, about a dozen are on display. None are larger than a canon ball.

* Cigar-shaped eggs were reconstructed from bits of shell.

Where and When: * At the Argyros Forum at Chapman University.

* Open for viewing daily, between 8 a.m and 8 p.m. Closed Labor Day. Display closes in late September.

Source: Chapman University