 Owen famously hosted a dinner for 21 prominent men of science inside the hollow concrete "Iguanodon" on New Year's Eve 1853.However, in 1849, a few years before his death in 1852, Gideon Mantell had realized that "Iguanodon", of which he was the discoverer, was not a heavy, pachyderm-like animal, as Owen was putting forward, but had slender forelimbs; his death left him unable to participate in the creation of the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, and so Owen's vision of dinosaurs became that seen by the public.He had nearly two dozen life-sized sculptures of various prehistoric animals built out of concrete sculpted over a steel and brick framework; two "Iguanodon", one standing and one resting on its belly, were included.