Complete Skeletons of the Aurochs (Bos primigenius)

The Aurochs is well represented in the Quaternary fossil record, with numerous bone finds across Eurasia and Africa; however, there may only be a few dozen complete, fully articulated skeletons of this animal, either on display or in storage in institutions around the world. I have been trying to collect a list of as many mounted specimens as I  can,but the list is certainly still incomplete. If you have photos of any aurochs specimens not yet listed here that you wouldn't mind being published on this blog please let me know in the comments. Many aurochs skeletons on display are composites containing axial and appendicular elements from different individuals; In this list I've included only those mounts which I know to be based mostly on single individuals.
This post will end up serving as an update to the post originally made by user Roberta on the now defunct Carnivora forum, for those viewers who are familiar. That extremely useful post unfortunately turns out to have omitted one or two mounted skeletons, and also contained dual entries for some specimens under different names. Additionally, it included some specimens that are no longer mounted or on display. Below each photo of a specimen in the list below, I'll try to include as much information as I have on its provenance, display history and current location. Some of this info is copied directly from Roberta's post, and credit for it goes to her.

Denmark

The  Vig Aurochs

 This is probably the most photographed aurochs skeleton in Europe. It is on display at the Zooligical Museum at the University of Copenhagen. In life, the Vig bull is believed to have been around 170 cm tall at the withers. 

From Roberta's post:

"Excerpt from Bent Hansen, “ 5. Denmark’s History - Maglemose Culture,” Dalum Hjallese Debate Club, 2014:

“ The Vig aurochs was found in 1904 during peat cutting. It is now on display in the National Museum, where it had been dated it to be from around 7,500 BC. In its skeleton two of Maglemose hunters’ arrowheads are firmly buried.

Around one arrowhead the bone has grown, so that did not cause the death of the ox, it must have lived for several years after the hunters’ first attack. But the second arrow must have hit it shortly before its death. Some round holes in its shoulder blades have been interpreted as traces of spears that have pierced the aurochs.

The hunters emerged from their hiding and shot several arrows into the side of the ox with their powerful bows; it escaped, they followed it and attacked with spears, it fled again, and perhaps it ran out on the ice of a small lake – and fell through.

And there the skeleton lay buried for thousands of years, until it was discovered in 1904 by smallholder Jens Peter Jensen as he was cutting peat in a small bog, outside his homestead at Jyderup. He produced most of the skeleton, and also found three small flint arrowheads. ” "
*Note: Some sources list the age of this skeleton as approximately 8,600 BC instead; that is probably the correct date.

The Prejlerup Aurochs

This skeleton of a massive aurochs bull is on display at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen. It stood 190 cm tall at the shoulders and was maybe 18-20 years old when it died. It was discovered in 1983.
 

"The Prejlerup ox bears traces of the hunters' attack. At least nine arrows made of pine have been buried in its body when it escaped the hunters, two in the right and seven in the left abdomen. The arrows were fitted with flint tips and attached microliths and therefore produced large bleeding wound. With the blood gushing out of wounds the ox fled over a cliff into a small lake. About 25 meters from the shore it overturned to its left side, died and sank to the bottom...it has been dated to be from about. 6,400 BC."- Source

*Note: Some sources list the date on this skeleton as being approximately 7,390 BC instead. This is probably the correct date, as this source (for example) which gives it seem more authoritative. 6,400 BC is one commonly given date for the end of the Maglemose Culture, and may have been given as the age of the aurochs by mistake.

The Store-Damme Aurochs

This skeleton was displayed at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen until 1991. The Prejlerup Aurochs is displayed there now. This skeleton has now been disarticulated and placed in storage. 

From Roberta's post:

"The Store Damme aurochs was found in 1864 by smallholder Henning Christopher Nielsen in Søbergmose peat bog behind his house in Store Damme on Møn. Most of the skeleton was excavated only in 1865, but it was still found to be almost complete.

The aurochs was close to 3 metres long. According to a 1941 book its “height was close to 2 meters” (source). A paper on the relation between the length of certain bones of an aurochs and the height of the animal arrives at a height of 156–169 cm for the Store Damme aurochs, depending on which bone is used (source). If we assume the ‘length of almost 3 metres’ to pertain to the skeleton as it is mounted in the picture, then the height of the mount is close to 175 cm (though if the upper forelegs were bent a bit more, the height would be less).

The horns have a span of 850 mm. (source)

The skeleton has been C14-dated to 9520 ±85 BP "

The Himmelev Aurochs

This skeleton of a young aurochs is on display at the Roskilde Musuem. It is dated to 10,000 BP. The skeleton was found in a bog near Himmelev. (source)

Sweden

The Hammarlöv Aurochs

This skeleton was loaned by the Biological Museum of  Lund University to the Malmö Museums a few years ago. It seems to have been moved back to the Biological Museum and placed in storage. A reference mentioning a well preserved aurochs skeleton in Lund with a length, excluding the tail, of 261 cm and a height of 171 cm most likely refers to this skeleton.

Roberta's post included the following exerpt: 

"The skeleton is variously also called Hammerslöv or Hammarslöv aurochs, but it was found in a peat bog in Hammarlöv in 1869. It may not have been complete and then completed with bones from other finds. According to the records, the original find encompassed “the complete skull, the complete spine with pelvis, all ribs, one shoulder blade, one humerus and ulna, and a femur and a heel bone” (Herved Berlin: “Oriktiga primäruppgifter angående Hammarlövsfyndet av uroxe (Bos primigenius Boj.)”, Fauna och flora vol. 28, 1933, pp. 105–114 [“Incorrect primary information regarding the Hammarlöv discovery of aurochs”]). One hind leg of the assembled skeleton stems from an aurochs find in Svedala, according to the records, the origin(s) of the remaining leg bones are unclear. But, as Herved Berlin notes, the skeleton as a whole is built very harmoniously, and the bones all have the same hue. Berlin thus suspects that it is the primary data that is not correct."

The Önnarp Aurochs

Also commonly referred to as the Lund bull (despite not being the only complete aurochs skeleton housed in Lund) this Aurochs skeleton is currently on display at the Lund University Historical Museum. It was remounted into the current pose (above) a few years ago, and pictures of the old mounting can still be found online. This individual has a bone injury from a survived hunting attempt; there is a hole in one of its spinous processes where an arrowhead pierced through the bone.

Following is some more information on this specimen from Roberta's post:

"The Önnarp aurochs was found in a peat bog in Önnarp in 1840. It is an almost intact skeleton of a 6–8-year-old bull from about 10,300 BP.

An account of its excavation can be found in Erika Rosengren: “Aurochs (Bos primigenius),” pp. 86-89 in Erika Rosengren: Sven Nilsson and the postglacial fauna of Scania, Lund: Lund University Historical Museum, 2014, ISBN: 978-916376083-9"

Germany

The Sassenberg Aurochs

This is a cast of a complete aurochs skeleton which was found in Sassenberg, Germany. The photo is from a temporary exhibit at Deutschen Jagd- und Fischereimuseum in 2011.

From Roberta's Post:

"This skeleton was found in 1986 during the excavation of a pond on the edge of the low terrace of the Hessel River (a tributary of the Ems), approximately 3.5 km from the place where the Sassenberg cow was found. It is dated to 7.400 – 10.700 BP. Height at withers is 165 cm. (source)"

The Braunschweig Aurochs

This skeleton is on display at the Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum in Braunschweig. In the last few years, a cast of the skeleton has been displayed at various European museums in in the travelling  "Eiszeit-Safari" exhibit. As recently as April 2019 the exhibit was held by Museum Wiesbaden; A cast is currently being displayed in this exhibit at Kunsthalle Leoben museum in Austria. From Roberta's Post:

"According to the shape of the pelvis and the rounded pubic bone the Alvesse aurochs was a bull. Judging by the wear of the teeth, it presumably was an older animal but not yet senile. (Th. Martin)

The premaxillae have been reconstructed from plaster.  'In the year 1875 the skeleton [...] was found in a peatbog of the Dummbruchgraben [Dummbruch ditch] near Alvesse. It was one of the most complete skeletons ever found. 

(German Wikipedia, “Alvesse (Vechelde),” cf. Sabine Ahrens, Dietrich Bernecker, Zweihundertfünfzig Jahre Naturhistorisches Museum in Braunschweig, Verlag Staatliches Naturhistorisches Museum, Braunschweig 2004.)"

The Haßleben Aurochs

This skeleton is exhibited at Phyletisches Museum Jena. The skeleton was found in a peat bog in Haßleben, Thuringia, in 1821. A note of interest, this particular skeleton is the holotype of the species Bos primigenius.

The Frimmersdorf aurochs

From Roberta's Post:

"Held at the Löbbeke Museum in Düsseldorf. I do not know whether it is on display or in storage. The skeleton has been restored a few times. The picture does not show the current mounting but a former one.

The skeleton was found in a lignite mine in the area of Friemersdorf, today part of Grevenbroich, in the 1840s. Until 1990 no scientific evaluation of the skeleton took place.

The massive skull with the large horn cores points to this aurochs being a male, but not enough of the pelvis has been preserved to say for sure. The closed epiphyses and the moderately worn teeth suggest a middle-aged bull. (Th. Martin)

Some parts of the skeleton are original, others have been artificially recreated:

“ The skull is preserved with both horn cores; the skull dimensions are slightly less than that of the exceptionally strong Braunschweig aurochs [the Alvesse aurochs, see below].

The left lower jaw (largely recreated with gypsum) contains P2 and P3, and M1–M3; the right lower jaw has been fully recreated.

Of the axial skeleton 7 cervical vertebrae, 12 thoracic vertebrae with 12 pairs of ribs, 7 lumbar vertebrae and 13 tail vertebrae exist. Of the shoulder girdle both shoulder blades have mostly survived (the dorsal ends have been recreated) as also left and right humerus, the radii with ulnae, carpal bones and metacarpals; the phalanges have been recreated. The pelvis has largely been reconstructed from gypsum; only the pubic bone and the parts around the acetabulum are original. The core of the sacrum is original, but on the outside there are thick layers of plaster and plastic. The rear extremities are casts obtained from the aurochs skeleton of the State Museum of Natural History in Braunschweig [the Alvesse aurochs, see below]. ”

My own attempts to contact the museum and inquire about the skeleton were unsuccessful, its current condition and even whereabouts are a mystery to me.

 The Niers Cow

This skeleton of an aurochs cow was found in Mönchengladbach on the river Niers; the live animal is believed to have been 1.5 meters tall and 2.2 meters long; it  died over 11,300 years ago the age of 18 to 20. It was hunted by hunters with bows and arrows. This is shown by arrowheads, which were found along with the skeleton. The website I got this information from mentions that it is the most complete aurochs skeleton ever found in Germany.

The photo above is from a special exhibition in 2016/2017 at Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold, however, the skeleton belongs to Rheinische Landesmuseum Bonn.

The Sassenberg Cow

This skeleton is held at Geologisch-Paläontologisches Museum Münster; it was was found in Füchtorfer Moor in 1844.

As of December 2018, it was under reconstruction.

The Schwielochsee Cow

This almost complete skeleton was discovered in 1887 at Schwielochsee in the Lübben district in Niederlausitz and was at one point kept in the Museum of the Agricultural University in Berlin (source). That institution closed in 1934 and was incorporated into the Humboldt University of Berlin, and the skeleton was popbably transferred into the holdigns of the latter; it was ultimately moved into the Humboldt University's daughter institution, the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The skeleton, in its mounted state, was described by Nehring in 1888. Nehring concluded that it was a female and gave its shoulder height as 168 cm. This figure is the largest quoted shoulder height that I am aware of for an aurochs cow, however, from looking at the image above, I think that the back legs might be bent a bit too much (it's hard to tell at that angle) so the proper resting shoulder height of the skeleton might have been lower and more in line with other female skeletons. Apparently the skull and epistropheus of the skeleton were stolen soon after they were discovered (source). The skeleton, now headless, remains in the collection of the Museum für Naturkunde ( MFN, pers. comm.)

France

The Torsac Dirac Aurochs

 

This skeleton is on display Musée d'Angoulême. At some point in the early 2000's, it was on loan to the Musée National de Préhistoire in Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil; it is now back at Musée d'Angoulême. Jean-François TOURNEPICHE, Conservateur en chef du Patrimoine at the museum, was kind enough to send me several photographs of this exhibit, including one with an extended tape measure running from the ground to the aurochs's shoulder. In its current mounting it is around 162.5 cm tall at the top of the first thoracic spinous process and 166 cm at the top of the second thoracic spinous process.

From Roberta's Post:
The text on the exhibit’s information board reads:
“ The Aurochs of Torsac-Dirac was discovered in the bed of the Eaux Claires creek. Brutally extracted by a mechanical shovel correcting the course of the stream in the early 1970s, all the parts of the skeleton were patiently collected by an amateur archaeologist, Jean Massaud.

The animal got stuck in this marshy bottom 3000 years ago and its skeleton was fully preserved in the peat. ”

More precise dates: “750 years = +/- 110 years uncalibrated [presumably BC], i.e. at the transition Bronze Age – Iron Age, respectively the transition Subboreal – Subatlantic”

The Etival Aurochs

A cast of this skeleton is on display at the exhibition “Il y a 6000 ans, des villages lacustres à Chalain et Clairvaux” in the Salle des fêtes, 9 Rue du Parterre, Clairvaux-les-Lacs. The exhibiton was still up as of December 2018. The Étival aurochs bull was discovered in 1979 in the Étival bog in the area of Étival (department Jura), France, in the border region to Switzerland. He died 4510 BC +/– 800 (late Boreal – early Atlantic resp. transition Mesolithic – Neolithic). He was around five years of age when he died and measured approx. 150 cm at the withers. The skeleton cast has previously been displayed at Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Genève in Switzerland.

Ukraine

The Kiev Aurochs

This skeleton of an aurochs cow is housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Kiev. Dr. Tatiana Krakhmalnaya was kind enough to send me the following information on the specimen:

"This skeleton belongs to the one individual. The bones were found in normal anatomical order in situ. The skull does not have nasal bones (not original on the mounted skeleton).

There are absent several teeth.Only right part of mandibula was preserved. Moreover, during restoration the facial part of the skull was deformed. Thus, we have  wrong orbit contours, deformеd palatinum, abnormal narrow facil part. This information was published in 1957 by N.O. Burchak-Abramovich in his monograph, devoted to  fossil Bos of the Old World.

The skeleton of Aurochs was found in 1934 in Ukraine, Odessa region, in 5 km  from the village Chausovo on  the bank of the Yuzhnyi Bug river

It belongs to the cow.

I think there are no any other mounted skeletons in Ukrainian museums."

Hungary

The Nagybajom Aurochs

This skeleton was temporarily on display at the Hungarian Museum of Natural History. A description from this website reads:

"The finding was unearthed in 1960 at the village Nagybajom near Kaposvár. The leader of the excavation was Professor Dénes Jánossy. The original remains gives cca.90 percent of the skeleton, the other elements in the mounted skeleton are models or were added from other individuals. At this time this specimen is the most complete aurochs skeleton in Hungary"

This skeleton has now been disarticualted and is in storage

The UK

The Cambridge Cow

This skeleton is on exhibition at the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge.

China

The Jilin Aurochs

This is the only complete skeleton of an aurochs ever found in China, or at least it was until recently (see below). It is the skeleton of a cow, found in Gan'an County in 1998,  and is dated to between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Chinese sources give the dimensions as 2.40 meters long and 1.58 meters tall; I don't know if that is based on inferences from the bones or measurements of the current mount. The skeleton is held at the Jilin Museum in Changchun.

Mystery Aurochs skeleton

There are several skeletons of the aurochs on display in China, but most of them are either composites with bones form many individuals, or models (i.e. fakes made of artificial bone). The skeleton above, however, may be another authentic, complete find. The problem is the I can't read Chinese characters, and I cant make heads or tails of the google translated version of the website which describes the exhibit that the skeleton is a part of. It may have been discovered in 2008 and donated to a museum in Baiyin in 2011. It may just be me, but I find that many aurochs skulls from eastern Asia, and especially China, have a strange, unique appearance to them. I'm currently working on a post about the taxonomy and appearance of the Chinese Aurochs, so stay tuned!

Conclusion

The above list may or may not be complete, but it does list all the  mounted specimens of which I am aware. It does not include most complete specimens that are not currently mounted, of which there are several across Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and Hungary at least. Iberia stands out as a large geographic region from which no complete aurochs skeletons have yet been discovered; hopefully that will change in the near future. New aurochs skeletons continue to be discovered all over Europe, and I will try my best to update this list whenever a new or overlooked specimen is brought to my attention