National Museum in Rio, destroyed about 90 percent of the collection

The first damage counts are coming in after the terrible fire that devastated the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro. It is estimated that 90 percent of the extremely rich collection, which, we recall, gathered some twenty million artifacts, was lost. Reporting this to Brazilian newspapers was Cristiana Serejo, deputy director of the museum. By her own admission, however, it is not possible at the moment to have more precise calculations.Researchers who have been allowed to enter the destroyed Paço de São Cristóvão (the museum’s headquarters), have begun to make an inventory of the surviving objects, starting, however, from a very restricted area. Among the artifacts found were some bones and fragments of a skull: experts are analyzing them and hope that the flames did not incinerate “Luzia,” the artifact considered the most important in the museum (it is a 12,000-year-old skeleton, the oldest in Latin America).

However, Serejo added that the Egyptian collection was completely destroyed, while surviving pieces, as we had already announced, include the valuable Pedra do Bendegó, the largest meteorite ever found in Brazil. Also surviving is a library consisting of 500,000 volumes, with some works dating back to the years of the Portuguese empire, because it was stored in a building attached to the museum and apparently spared from destruction.

“I hope all this will serve as a lesson for us,” Serejo concluded while speaking to reporters, “because there are other public buildings that are in the same situation as the National Museum.” Meanwhile, the citizens of Rio de Janeiro, who since the early hours have autonomously gathered outside the burned building, continue their protest ( clashes with the police have also ensued): signs with the words “a society without culture and research is a failed society” have also been hung from the barriers marking the area off limits to the public. And meanwhile, investigations are also continuing, which are to shed light on the origin of the fire.

AP Photo.

National Museum in Rio, destroyed about 90 percent of the collection

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