Welcome to the Waldemar Julsrud Museum

" The Dinosaur Museum"

The discovery made by Waldemar Julsrud, a collection of more than 32,000 pieces from Acámbaro, Mexico, that seems to represent dinosaurs, extinct animals, y people from far away cultures, has caused much controversy for almost three quarters of a century. With non-official carbon-14 exams, some scientists try to convince others that the figures come from a time some 6,000 years ago, many years even before the first civilizations in Sumeria.

A number of people have tried to find evidence in the figures that humans and dinosaurs co-existed, in order to support their creationist beliefs. Others say that the inspiration for the figures came from dinosaur bones found by the natives, or that the figures are simply creations of the imagination. Others say that the collection is a simple hoax.

Be as it may, the simple discovery of so many figures in one single place, with so much detail and artistic talent, and so much knowledge of dinosaurs in a time when even the best archeologists knew relatively nothing about dinosaurs, is rather incredible.

In 1945, Waldemar Julsrud, a business man and a fan of the hippodrome, was passing along on his horse near the Hill of the Bull in Acámbaro, Guanajuáto, when he found a clay figurine near the path. With is experience with the Chupícuaro culture, which he helped to discover in 1923, he could not recognize the figurine as one of any Mexican culture. He asked Odilón Tinajero, a peasant, to look for more similar figurines for which he would pay him a peso each. The collection of clay figurines of Waldemar Julsrud, some which seem to represent dinosaurs, extinct animals, and from unknown Mexican cultures, came to a collection of over 32,000 pieces.

Since his great discovery, Waldemar Julsrud kept all of his figurines in his own house like a museum, so that the public could see them until his death. Julsrud later handed over the collection to the town municipality of Acámbaro where they were lost for years in boxes in the town hall. Today, the Waldemar Julsrud collection can be seen by everyone in the new Waldemar Julsrud Museum, which opened in 2002.

The Waldemar Julsrud Museum has as its goal to inspire more research regarding the truth about the figurines ­ to do official testing on the pieces, yet investigate the creation of the figurines with skepticism until the truth is found.