GIANT bones that lived their life deep in the Alaskan waters, endured an epic 7,000-mile journey to the region and spent several months buried in layers of manure, are finally to go on show.

The pair of whalebones will soon be taking their place on Whitby's West Cliff, in North Yorkshire, replacing the decaying whalebone arch that has been a landmark for almost 50 years.

The 16ft bones have had to go through a specialist cleaning process for months in preparation for them going up alongside the town's Captain James Cook statue next week.

To keep them clean, experts devised an unusual method.

They were buried in animal manure for months as a way of extracting any remaining whale oil.

"It may be unusual, but it worked a treat," said a spokesman for Scarborough Borough Council, the local authority given the job of erecting the bones.

"If it wasn't done, the oil would ooze out of the bones and fall to the ground below - despite the whale being dead for five years."

The borough council, in conjunction with Whitby Town Council, has been looking for replacement whalebones for some time.

As part of their worldwide search, the authorities made an appeal to Whitby's twin towns and cities in the Falklands and Alaska.

Fortune had it that a pair of whalebones, weighing 350lb, had been found at North Slope Borough, on the north coast of Alaska, and Whitby was given them as a gift last March from the city of Anchorage.

The bowhead whale had been killed five years earlier by indigenous Alaskan Eskimos, known as Inupiats, who legitimately hunt whales for their subsistence.

Whalebones have stood on the West Cliff for many years, as a reminder of Whitby's days as a whaling port. Whaling was carried out from Whitby from 1753 to 1837, when whale oil was a prized commodity.

Whitby's old whalebone arch was taken down at the beginning of the week and put into storage. It had slowly deteriorated due to the weather.