For #FossilFriday, a thread on that most famous palaeontological banquet of all time: the 1853 NYE dinner in the @cpdinosaurs Iguanodon. I was chatting with folks about this last week in an obscure corner of Twitter, and I figured some of that content is of wider interest.

A lot of info survives about the banquet and we have a pretty good idea what occurred that evening, right down to who did the catering. I was surprised to learn that some people regard the entire event as apocryphal. There's no logic to that, we can be certain this happened.

The idea for the meal seems to have come from the lead @cpdinosaurs sculptor, B. Waterhouse Hawkins. But the reason for the banquet was not NYE jollies or celebrating the completion of the CP sculptures - Hawkins et al. still had 6 months of hard work ahead of them.

Instead, it was a publicity stunt. The CP dino project was a commercial one - part of the huge Crystal Palace Park development overseen by Joseph Paxton between 1852-1854. The CP Company was looking to generate hype and buzz...

... and by late 1853 Hawkins had finished 10-15 sculptures, so had a shed full of amazing stuff. The CP Company realised their PR potential and started letting the press in to see it. This might be the first corporate recognition of the marketing potential of prehistoric animals.

A swanky meal in an Iguanodon naturally had huge media potential, but it wasn't an entirely original idea. Banquets in mastodon skeletons and horse sculptures had already been done in the US and UK, one of them attended by Hawkins' father. The CP event may have roots in these.

Invitations to the banquet were sent out late - with just one week's notice, in fact. The delegation of between 21-28 people (accounts differ on this point) could have been greater, but some invitees were already engaged. It was the festive season, after all.

The invitations are almost as famous as the meal itself, with the text on a pterosaur wing and the background predicting the eccentric nature of the evening. There are several different versions - those shown here are drafts, as I understand it.

The invitees were people of importance and influence: CP Company chiefs, newspaper editors, other press folks, and renowned scientists. Richard Owen (pictured, in his 1850s morph) was the guest of honour, despite (ostensibly) being involved in the CP project already.

In fact, records show that Owen did very little to assist in the creation of the CP dinosaurs. The Iguanodon banquet is one of his only documented visits to the workshed, and there are numerous letters to and about Owen regarding his absence from the project.

The dinner was to be held in the clay mould of the standing Iguanodon, not the brick, tile and iron sculpture that's still with us today. These clay versions were used to sculpt the form and details of each animal, which could then be cast and transferred to the concrete ones.

The use of the clay mould places the venue of the dinner in Hawkins workshed: a cold, drafty wooden building surrounded by mud and swamps. But it was preferable to eating in one of the concrete models, which were only covered by scaffolds and canvas as they were constructed.

The workshed was spruced up for the evening. We have an idea of the decor through an Illustrated London News engraving, reportedly created by a draftsman in attendance. Other famous historic images of the banquet were drawn from memory or description, sometimes decades later.

To make the event more comfortable and impressive, a large pink and white awning was erected around the Iguanodon model. Within it, a chandelier and banners with the names of prominent geologists and palaeontologists were hung.

Platforms and stairs allowed waiters and diners access to the Iguanodon. Illustrations of the workshed show raised areas already installed in parts of the building, allowing Hawkins and co. access to large models and storage for completed sculptures.

The $million question about the evening is the seating plan. The Iguanodon mould was big... but that _that_ big. It would have been about 30 ft long, maybe 10-ish ft high. (I'm standing next to the Iguandon sculptures in the image below - I'm 5' 10".)

Hawkins reported in 1872 - when the image below was also created made - that the seating space in the model was a mere 15ft long. Can you really fit 21, or even 28, people in that space, alongside a dining table, for the duration of a 7-course meal?

The answer might be 'yes, sort of'. Hawkins is pretty exacting in his description of the evening, stating that nine people squeezed into each side of the Iguanodon, with Owen and other important folks at the ends of the table. Written accounts confirm the basics of this story.

BUT - the Illustrated London News image and various literary sources report an adjacent table. Some guests surely sat there most of the night, perhaps only cramming into the model at ceremonial moments (toasts, speeches etc.).

The story of Owen being the literal head of the table - the symbolic brain of the operation - seems pretty accurate, though. We even have a sketch from Hawkins showing him in situ (note the casting material around the base of the Iguanodon - omitted from other illustrations).

The banquet reportedly went on long past midnight. A poem or song about proceedings was penned by Edward Forbes, though it's not clear if it was actually recited or sang by the guests, as is so often reported. Musical entertainment of another kind was provided, though.

BTW, if your new dream is to hear Forbes' Iguanodon ditty as a banjo-led tune, you're in luck: the University of Cambridge created just that in 2015. Happy Friday, folks. https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/iggy-the-iguanodon-and-the-160-year-old-dinosaur-song

As a PR event, the banquet paid off handsomely. It was written about across Europe, including a near full page-spread in the Illustrated London News. The associated 'Gigantic Bird' article is not obvious CP-related, but it bigs up Owen and his work reconstructing the moa...

...using Cuverian correlation - the fundamental reconstruction principle at the heart of the CP Dinosaurs project. The resurrection of Owen's moa work - by this time 15 years old - was purely to enhance the reputation of the CP project.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the editor of the Illustrated London News was one of the guys sitting in the Iguanodon. Yeah, nothing has changed.

There's a lot more we could say about this, but I have to stop there. Don't forget that the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs need conservation and financial support right now - find out how you can help at https://cpdinosaurs.org/ , or donate directly via https://cpdinosaurs.org/donate/ .