Nearly 70 years after the discovery of the mammoth on March 25, 1954, in the Santarelli Furnace in Madonna della Strada, a hamlet of Scoppito, the National Museum of Abruzzo has today acquired, through the generosity of two families, the Santarellis and Pietrosantis, significant, partially unpublished documentation on the discovery of the fossil.
The heirs of Engineer Mario Santarelli, Cecilia and Eugenia, owners of the quarry, which was active until the 1970s, have donated 23 original photographs taken at the time of the discovery and printed by the Ludovico Carli studio in L’Aquila.
The official narrative, reported in scientific texts published by the Institute of Paleontology of the University of Rome, which supervised the work, states: “During a test drilling for water, the elephant’s skeleton was found…”
More precisely, in the words of quarry workers, collected years ago by the Santarelli family, a more detailed reconstruction emerges: “The excavation machines had far exceeded the site of the discovery and were operating further forward because the clay deposit had been exhausted. The underlying layers of sand remained, collected by hand and shovel, used to separate the freshly drawn bricks of fresh, moist clay, which were then stacked on trolleys for drying. A shovel struck something hard, a whitish “top” that refused to emerge from the sand and was obstructing the ever-deeper excavation. Little by little, the tusk emerged…”
The second donation concerns the Pietrosanti family: 6 original and partially unpublished photos, as well as Two volumes by Professor Angiola Maria Maccagno, “The Elephas Meridionalis Nesti of Contrada Madonna della Strada, Scoppito,” 1962, and “Report on the Excavation, Restoration, and Assembly Technique of the Fossil Elephant Discovered near L’Aquila,” 1958.
Mr. Claudio Pietrosanti’s grandfather, Antonio Ferri, was entrusted with the recovery and restoration of the fossilized bones by Professor Angiola Maria Maccagno, director of the Institute of Geology and Paleontology at the University of Rome. “My grandfather,” his grandson explains, “worked as a piling worker in the Libyan desert, and in Benghazi, where he lived, he met Professor Carlo Petrocchi, director of the Tripoli Museum of Natural Sciences. It was Petrocchi who recommended him to Professor Maccagno when, repatriated as a refugee to Italy, he was appointed, as an external consultant, to recover the remains from the Santarelli quarry and then to restore the bones from 1954 to 1959.” That year, the mammoth was brought to the East Bastion of the 16th-century Castle and finally put on public display in 1960.
During 2024, the 70th anniversary of its discovery, the National Museum of Abruzzo will promote a series of initiatives to celebrate this important anniversary.
The video “Uscito dalla Preistoria” (Out of Prehistory) by the Istituto Luce, which chronicles this incredible event, was released on March 31, 1954. It is accessible in the historical archive at the link:
https://patrimonio.archivioluce.com/luce-web/detail/IL5000030582/2/-34157.html&jsonVal=
The ceremony was attended by Dr. Federica Zalabra, director of the National Museum of Abruzzo, the donors: the Santarelli heirs, Cecilia and Eugenia, Claudio Pietrosanti, paleontologist Maria Adelaide Rossi, directors of the latest restoration of the Mammoth, and the mayor of Scoppito, Loreto Lombardi.
