culture
Rio’s national museum destroyed
The National Museum of Rio, the oldest in Brazil, founded 200 years ago, has been reduced to ashes. The museum housed a collection of more than 20 million pieces of diverse nature and origin, from the Bendegó meteorite, the largest found in the country, to a collection of Egyptian mummies and the skull of Luzia, “the oldest woman in America.” The objects represented the numerous civilizations of the Americas, Europe and Africa and was considered the fifth most important institution of its kind in the world for its heritage.
The causes of the fire which began on Sunday when the museum had already closed, leaving only four security officers inside who escaped the blaze, are as of yet unknown. Despite the fact that no one died nor was injured, the loss of assets is immense, since almost nothing was saved from the artistic and archaeological treasures it contained.