Disappointed museum staff discovered this weekend that an object dug up in a pensioner's back garden was not a great archaeological find - it was just part of the old water network.
Staff at Southend Museum said last week that the 4ft long object found in a back garden in Leigh was a 20,000-year-old mammoth tusk.
But on Friday night an expert dismissed the idea and said that it was a clay pipe that was probably only 120 years old.
Dudley Green, 67, of Agnes Avenue, discovered the pipe while digging a trench to get rid of rain water. He said: "I thought it was an elephant's tusk.
"So I phoned the museum to see what they thought it was. They were very excited. They thought it was a mammoth's tusk and told me that they can be 14-foot-long and I had found four foot of one."
Published Monday September 15, 2003
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