A PAIR OF ‘IRISH ELK’ OR ‘GIANT DEER’ ANTLERS

Megaloceros giganteus
Late Pleistocene
Dnieper River Kamianske, Ukraine
Bone map on request
268 × 145 cm (without stand)

The Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus), also called the giant deer or Irish deer, is an extinct species in the genus Megaloceros and is one of the largest deer that ever lived. Its range extended across Eurasia during the Pleistocene, from Ireland to Lake Baikal in Siberia. The most recent remains of the species have been carbon dated to about 7 700 years ago in western Russia.

A folk memory of the Irish elk was once thought to be preserved in the Middle High German word Schelch, a large beast mentioned in the 13th-century Nibelungenlied along with the then-extant aurochs: Dar nach schluch er schiere, einen Wisent und einen Elch, Starcher Ure vier, und einen grimmen Schelch... (After this he straightway slew a bison and an elk, of the strong wild oxen four, and a single fierce Schelch…).