In 2017, I worked a lot of overtime and so spent half the spring in Levinschen Park (German)…
Ever since then, I’ve been wondering whether it might just be a whale’s lower jaw lying there, without anyone having noticed.
I was reminded of this again during the week and took a few photos. The exact location on various map providers.
Now only half of the object remains. However, on Google Maps I found it looking just as I remember it:
- Image from July 2021. On the right-hand edge of the picture.
- Image from June 2022. Behind the red climbing frame on the right.
I have seen structures like this on several occasions, for example in North Frisia. Here you can see the much larger whale bone portal at the Dr Carl Häberlin Frisian Museum in Wyk on Föhr.
Image by amras_wi, public domain
Wikimedia Commons contains many comparative images of arches made from baleen (more specifically: the lower jaws of baleen whales).
On closer inspection, even more details become apparent:
- The material is fibrous in the upper layers and porous in the deeper layers.
- Organic-looking, upward-facing openings are visible on the front, which are thought to be blood vessels.
There is no mention of it in the entry for Levinscher Park in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas either.
The biologist and photographer Dirk Pfuhl regularly documents the wildlife of Levinschen Park and has also written about the history of the park, but there are no further clues to be found there either…
Perhaps it’s time to find out how the bones ended up there, and maybe put up a small information board as well.