Woolly mammoth skeleton painstakingly assembled from ancient remains to be sold at auction

The complete skeleton of a woolly mammoth - dating back up to 50,000 years - is expected to fetch more than £200,000 when it goes under the hammer next week.

The skeleton, which took more than a decade to painstakingly piece together and mount on a frame, measures a huge 5.5 metres long and 3.2 metres high.

It is made up of around 270 bones, most dredged up from the bottom of the sea using fishing nets.

The remains, which date back between 30,000 and 50,000 years, were assembled by Dutchman Bart Schenning in a mammoth-sized shed outside his house then mounted on a frame.

Huge - Bart Shenning had to assemble the skeleton in a huge shed outside his house (Pictures: SWNS)

He is now selling it on auction site Catawiki, with bidding expected to reach up to £225,000 when the auction closes next Sunday.

Describing the sale as a “once in a lifetime event”, auctioneer David Leggett said the mammoth was attracting interest from both museums and private collectors.

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He said: “In the ice age there was no North Sea and animals moved freely across the globe. When the ice melted their bones sunk to the bottom of the sea.”

He said fishermen’s trawling systems used to bring up a lot of ice age bones, with much of it ending up in Holland.

Painstaking - the remains were mainly recovered from the bottom of the sea

“Bart collected these bones over a ten year plus period until he had enough to build a full mammoth. He then built a mammoth-sized shed outside his house and constructed the skeleton there.”

He added: “You occasionally get tusks and teeth and individual bones, but a full skeleton like this is extremely rare.”