UKC

Friend of mine found this lot in their garden. Any ideas?  

One half of Lord Lucan’s pubis?

call the Midsomer Constabulary

Took me a few seconds to work out it was a reflection of washing on a line in the table glass.

Whoever buried the body shouldn't have buried the murder weapon with it.

Professor Plum, in the conservatory with a ....... window frame?

On the left it looks there is a wing, is it a unicorn?

It does look like the lower part of the pelvic bone. Not sure whether it's human, though...

Oh, and an old boot on the left.

If your 'friend' needs the garden digging a bit more, maybe have a word with the police; they may want to fig a bit further...

Unicorns don't have wings.  Pegasus did, and alicorns do, but unicorns, no.  And yes, I'm a fully paid up pedant.

Prove it.

Sssh. That's my cunning plan to get our allotment dug over.

Judging by the bits of metal it might be a Terminator of some description, or a Cyberman.

If it's pelvic if you turn it over you should see the ball shaped socket.

The boot looks like a British Army boot from WW1 era but a lot of surplus were sold off for colliery and industrial use. The sawn off bone suggests this is a rubbish dump for kitchen scraps and domestic waste and nothing sinister. The bucket handle supports this. Does your friend live near the site of an old army camp, colliery, factory or rail site?  I once dug out part of a WW1 camp and it was full of identical items - lots of bones and oyster shells, plus bottles and crockery. I concluded that modern sensibilities around cuts of meat mean we don't eat much off the Pelvis and Skull these days but back in the day nowt were wasted. I suppose a forensic anthropologist should rule out foul play but my guess would be ovine or porcine.

It’s from the Isle of Man. 

What animal do you reckon?

Hard to say, I'd guess not human, I'm next to a skeleton now (I teach anatomy) and the large opening (obturator foramen) looks too oblong and regular shaped. I'd guess pig or cow but no idea. How big is it?

Size ? Will try and find out. 

Right, have to pop upstairs and tell my youngest that her favourite toy isn't a unicorn. Just got to go and burst a childhood bubble, I'll be back in a minute!

STOP!  Get some wings from an airfix spitfire or anything and glue them on the unicorn. They probably wouldn’t notice and they can keep their delusion going...

Get some off a Sopwith Camel - that'll look even cooler.

(or maybe a Lancaster...)

Are there three legs?

Her Unicorn probably already does have wings like the one my daughter has. Toy manufacturers aren't into factual accuracy with fantasy creatures, plenty of unicorn toys also have wings.

Just bumped into a colleague at work who's an osteoarchaeologist.

Cow or pig from what she can tell from the photo, but it depends on size.

Bones sawn so context modern. Obviously 'modern' is relative to an archaeologist! 

youtube.com/watch?v=O9wva5bUAI8&

The square object is from the earliest iPhone

Resident farmy vet reckons bovine rather than porcine, but tricky given scale.