On 2. September 2018, was destroyed by a major fire in the national Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Much of the unique collections is lost forever. But on the first anniversary of the disaster, optimism reigns again.
In the last twelve months, Murilo Bastos has screened mainly of rubble in the burned-out São Cristóvão Palace, the main building of the national Museum in Rio de Janeiro. Actually, the Bioarchäologe deals with biological anthropology – that is, with bones and skeletons, including that of the 12,000 years, the oldest human Fossil in the Americas, known as Luzia. But his scientific career rests currently: He’s trying to save what can be saved.
Luzias fractured skull he found after a long Search in the ruins of the former Royal Palace again. “The skull had been fragile, but through the fire, he was broken apart. “We can put together virtually again to Luzia give a human face to,” says Bastos, opposite the Deutsche Welle.
A year after the great fire: search for clues in rubble and debris
Another highlight of the search, the discovery of the amulets of the Egyptian priestess Sha-Amun-en was-su. Than the once the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II donated the sarcophagus, sealed, ran in front of almost three millennia, together with the mummy verb, the grave goods to the fore. “To find these amulets was very touching,” says Bastos.
Past wiped out
Bastos, referred to as optimists. But the losses are large. He created just the inventory of the collections, many of the data he hadn’t backed up yet, as the Computer and the bones were burned down due to a short circuit in an air conditioner in flames. “This means the loss of very important information about our past – a loss that can not be undone. The story of our past has been wiped out by the fire.”
A short-circuit in the air conditioning: The Brazilian national Museum at 2. September 2018
Also Luciana Witovisk, Professor of paleobotany, has suffered due to the fire losses. But the fossil tree fern from the 19th century. Century, the was to her heart, she found in a closet in the middle of the debris. In the closet, everything was destroyed, “except for the Psaronius Brasiliensis. I was beside myself with joy.”
On the evening of the fire, they prevented the police from acting to race in the burning Palace, from the colleagues just a few pieces of the collections were able to save. “I lost my lab and my office, my ongoing studies, as well as the paleobotanical collection, whose curator, I was.”
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Fire the national Museum in Rio destroyed
It was at the time of the fire, especially in the long-term process, the collections are definitely out of the Palace to outsource, the Museum’s Director Alexander Kellner, compared to the DW. The Vertebrates, botany, library and other smaller collections had already been brought to other places, which is why they were preserved. However, of the approximately 20 million collection pieces in the Museum, approximately 80 percent were still in the building. Around half of the entire Museum inventory was destroyed.
Donations from Germany
“Most of all, hurts us to not have the ethnographic Material from indigenous peoples lost there,” said the waiter. But he remains an Optimist. “We together are pretty good. The most important thing in a disaster, the rebuilding projects are. And the we’re doing.”
Plans for reconstruction: General Director Alexander Kellner, here at an event in Berlin
Especially thankful to the donors from Germany, so the waiter. So far, 326.179 Euro from the Federal foreign office promised special funds have been paid out of a total of a maximum of one Million euros.
But also the public sector in Brazil, despite the empty coffers, funds available, in order to let the reconstruction begin. Waiters is planning the construction of a three storey building in the adjacent Park “Quinta da Boa Vista”. The 90 professors, 230 technicians and 500 students come first, and the recovered collections to find a temporary home.
A Life’s Work
Also an education centre for children is intended to be, for he is currently looking for donors in Europe and China. “If I have the money, we could have this time next year, a new Museum – temporarily, sure, but it would still be great. Then we were back in Business.” The newly-designed national Museum itself, he wants to open gradually between 2022 and 2025.
The dream of a modernized Palace: The national Museum, a year after the disaster
Until then, a lot of work is waiting for the Museum Team. “The rescued pieces have to be studied and catalogued, it must be prepared plans for new exhibitions, new collections compiled, and new studies are started,” says Bastos. “I’m going to have to work the rest of my life.”
As the new national Museum should look like, he already knows. “When I close my eyes, I see the completely renovated Palace, back in its original appearance, with all its history, its importance, and opulence. And in him I see a wonderful exhibition.”
But first, the last of the debris must be riddled mountains. It is about 15 percent, is still missing Witovisk believes. “But what we have already been able to save enough for a nice fresh start to the national Museum.”
“The disaster is an opportunity”
Currently Witovisk have to improvise, teach, you, in the Horto Botânico, an adjoining building, had been spared the fire. Of the Funding Agency Faperj you have received funds for the restoration of the collections, the 30.000 reais (about 6,500 euros) per scientist. “This stuff is not easy, but we are making progress.”
A modern language: The Museu do Amanha, Inspiration for future exhibitions of the national Museum
More Worried about the Situation of their students, preparing her. The Museum is affiliated to the Federal University of Rio, UFRJ face. And there are currently serious reductions in funding; scholarships are no longer safe. “But I’m just in the mood to expect miracles, and as we cope with everyday life and hope that the government is cutting so on, as it has done already.”
In the disaster of the national Museum a Chance to spent even Witovisk believes. “As the national Museum, its 200. Celebrated a birthday, we had the impression that it was already disappeared from the field of view of the people.” That was a few weeks before the fire that catapulted the Museum, then all of a sudden in the focus of world attention.
While in front of the fire, only a few visited the national Museum, people flocked at the same time in the new “Museu do Amanha”, a “spectacular Museum without collections,” such as Witovisk it’s called. There, everything is new, it is taker, with high technology and a modern language. “Who knows, with the rebuilding, with more technological exhibitions, we will attract in the national Museum, and perhaps, soon, a lot more people.”