Giant Thigh Bone

Dinosaur Adventure Land (operated by Kent Hovind) has a "Creation Museum"  displaying what is claimed to be a "thigh bone from the 13 foot man" (right [1]).  The bone is leaning against the right side of the case. 

This bone can also be seen in Hovind's Creation Seminar Series as either a direct reference and/or a permanent set decoration during Parts 2, 6 and 7.

Capture 1 Thigh bone found in Egypt? [8] 

Capture 2 Thigh bone takes pride of place [9]

Capture 3 Hovind directly referring to thigh bone [10]

During Part 7 of the Seminar Series Hovind points to the bone and says;

"[...] like this thigh bone here over my head which is from a human which would have been nearly 13 feet tall. [...] That would have been a 13 foot human.  Well, if only a fragment of that bone was found nobody would believe it came from a human if they believed in evolution."  [10]

There is an interesting story behind this bone.

Firstly, it is not a real bone.  Hovind acknowledges this in Part 2 of his video series; "thigh bone replica from a giant skeleton". [8]   While it is not uncommon for museums to use replicas for preservation and security reasons, this replica is not based upon an artifact.  There is no "giant skeleton".  There isn't a single bone.  There isn't even a bone fragment.

So where did this "bone" come from?  The source is the imagination of Joe Taylor of Mt Blanco Museum.  Taylor received a letter [2] claiming large skeletons were found during road construction in Turkey.  Other sources [3][4] claim this "discovery" was made in the 1950's but no references are provided.  And like most such stories actual physical artifacts are absent.  Hovind claims this "bone" was found in Egypt [8].  Egypt?  Turkey?  Confused yet? (See also Ed Babinski's comments)

However, the absence of an actual bone didn't stop Taylor.  He modeled the femur (thigh bone) on the normal skeleton of "one of the Malachite Man females" [2] (also known as Moab Man) which he has in his collection. Because women's femurs have slight variations to men's [6] Hovind's "13 foot man" is actually a woman.

But by only doubling all of the dimensions of a regular femur Taylor has ignored basic anatomical proportion.  The square-cube law observes that doubling the dimensions of an organism increase its mass (volume of body) eight-fold. [5]  Bones of creatures like elephants are so thick relative to length because it is the cross-section of the bone which carries the load.  If our giant human remained in proportion, her femur would need to have eight times the cross-section of a regular femur to support the increased load.  Taylor has only given her half of the strength she would need.  This also means all of the bones of the skeleton poster (see photo) have the wrong proportions.

Taylor sells these 2:1 scale models of a normal femur for US$450  A poster of a 2:1 sketch of a normal skeleton costs $50 extra.[2] 

So in summary, Taylor made an oversized replica of a normal human femur to represent a bone whose only evidence of existence is a letter based upon rumor. Additionally, the proportions of the bone are wrong. Then along comes Kent Hovind who tries to pass off this fantasy as science and manages to turn a woman into a man in the process.

Carl Marychurch 2005

[1]  Thigh bone from the 13 foot man http://www.dinosauradventureland.com/kidos/museum/creationmuseum.html [January 2005]

[2] Story behind the giant human femur sculpture http://www.mtblanco.com/html/giant_tale.html [January 2005]  Also http://www.stevequayle.com/Giants/pics/giant.femur.html [January 2005]   

[3] Discoveries of Giant Human Bones http://www.returnofthenephilim.com/GiantBonesDiscoveries.html [January 2005]

[4] Ohio Valley Bones: Reality? or Imagination? http://www.geocities.com/saqatchr/page46.html [January 2005]

[5] Comparative Anatomy Topic 4: Form and Function http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/zy/0301/Topic4/Topic4.html#square [January 2005]

[6] Gray's Anatomy - The Femur http://education.yahoo.com/reference/gray/subjects/subject?id=59 [January 2005]

[7] Hovind, Kent, 2003 (?) Creation Seminar Series, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola, USA.

[8] Hovind, Kent, 2003 (?) Creation Seminar Series - Part 2 @ 0:57:20, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola, USA.

[9] Hovind, Kent, 2003 (?) Creation Seminar Series - Part 6 @ 0:01:15, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola, USA.

[10] Hovind, Kent, 2003 (?) Creation Seminar Series - Part 7 @ 1:08:00, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola, USA.