Arts & Sciences concludes 2020 with Leonard “Kris” Krishtalka talking about The Camel Driver, the third book in his Harry Przewalski series, published Nov. 28. Kris is retiring at end of 2020 as director of KU’s Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum.
Join us to hear about the intrigues Przewalski, former paleontologist-turned-detective, uncovers as he investigates the vandalism of a world-famous 19th-century diorama at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The diorama depicts two Barbary lions attacking a North African courier crossing the desert astride a dromedary camel. The vandal has smashed the glass case, slit open the belly of the taxidermied camel, and removed a bundle that sheds bits of fiber and flesh from a mummified infant. The macabre history of the diorama takes Przewalski from Pittsburgh to Cape Town to North Africa to Paris, tracing clues revealing sexual betrayal, an unwanted child, a lurid trial, gravesites plundered for museum exhibits of racial superiority once endorsed by anthropology – and a bundle that spurred a murderous race for scientific fame. NOTE: This past September, the Carnegie Museum draped the diorama from public view out of cultural respect.