Dinosaurs of Tendaguru facts for kids
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The book Dinosaurs of Tendaguru (original title: Dinosaria wa Tendaguru) is an exciting natural history book for young readers from Tanzania. It tells the story of how amazing dinosaur fossils were found and dug up at Tendaguru hill in the Lindi Region of South Eastern Tanzania. The book was written in Swahili, which is Tanzania's official language, by Cassian Magori and Charles Saanane. A German artist named Thomas Thiemeyer created the cool illustrations. This book came out in 1998 with help from the Goethe-Institut in Dar es Salaam, which is a German cultural center. It was published by E&D Vision Publishing in Tanzania.
Contents
Discovering Ancient Giants: The Tendaguru Dinosaurs
This book uses pictures and a story that's partly made up to tell about dinosaurs. These dinosaurs lived about 150 million years ago in East Africa. Their skeletons were dug up between 1906 and 1913 in what was then called German East Africa. These excavations are still the most important dinosaur fossil finds in all of Africa.
Since the book is for young Tanzanian readers, the authors created a new narrative. This story helps connect the discovery, the digging up of fossils, and the scientific facts about dinosaurs to modern-day Tanzania. For the first time, this book gave Tanzanian readers detailed information in their own language about the excavations and the dinosaur skeletons. Many of these skeletons are now shown at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany.
The Journey of the Fossils
Over several years, African workers carefully packed 230 tons of fossil material into wooden boxes. This material included bones and other signs of life from 150 million years ago. German scientists supervised this huge effort. The boxes were carried from the Tendaguru Formation site to the nearby port of Lindi. From there, they were shipped to Hamburg and then finally to Berlin.
At the museum in Berlin, scientists put together several skeletons from different dinosaur species. The fossils from the Tendaguru Formation are now one of the world's most important collections for ongoing research. The most amazing part of the museum's dinosaur display is an almost 14-meter-high skeleton of a Giraffatitan. It's the largest dinosaur skeleton on display anywhere in the world!
A New Story of Discovery
The book shares scientific facts about how dinosaurs lived and their environment. It also talks about why they might have become extinct and how they are grouped into different species. But the story of how they were found is told differently than in old German records.
German reports said that a German mining engineer first found the fossils while exploring the Tendaguru area. However, the Tanzanian book says a local farmer, a wise old man named Mzee Buheti, made the discovery. In the story, Mzee Buheti uses special herbs from his wife, Mama Msomoe, to travel through time. A spirit guides him on these journeys. On one trip, he goes back millions of years and sees giant animals in the Tendaguru hills. When he returns to his own time, he sees how the environment changed, which eventually led to the dinosaurs dying out.
The book also includes a timeline that shows the history of our universe from the very beginning until now. It has pictures of different species and gives short scientific facts about how dinosaurs and other creatures evolved. The authors chose the name Buheti for their main character to honor the real Boheti bin Amrani. He was the local "chief supervisor" of more than 100 African workers who helped with the excavations. So, in the book, when the German engineer Bernhard Sattler explores the region in 1906, Mzee Buheti is the one who shows him where the fossils were found. This leads to the big excavations and scientific studies.
Bringing Dinosaurs to Life
To help readers imagine the dinosaurs and their world, Thomas Thiemeyer, a German artist who specializes in dinosaurs, created colorful pictures. These illustrations show what the dinosaurs might have looked like when they were alive and how they became extinct. They also bring to life the made-up story of their discovery from a Tanzanian point of view. The Kiswahili text was written by palaeontologist Charles Sanaane and natural historian Cassian Magori from the University of Dar es Salaam. A writer named Bernard Mapalala then edited it to make it perfect for young readers.
Why This Book Was Important
Most scientific research and information about these dinosaur excavations were published in German or English. This meant very few Tanzanians knew about the Tendaguru fossils before this book came out. Even though there's been a lot of talk about cultural cooperation and returning African cultural heritage from European museums, Tanzania doesn't have any of the Tendaguru dinosaur specimens. It also doesn't have enough people or facilities to show dinosaur fossils properly.
To make this important historical information available to local people, the Goethe-Institut in Dar es Salaam suggested the story of the Tendaguru dinosaurs to the book's publishers in 1998. According to Elieshi Lema from E&D Vision Publishing, 4000 copies of the book were printed with financial help from a sponsor. These copies were given out for free to secondary schools in Tanzania. In Kenya, the book was also approved as teaching material for primary schools and colleges that train teachers. The book is now out of print, but you can find copies in libraries in Sweden, Japan, and the United States.
