Brazil, fire ravages Rio de Janeiro's National Museum. 200 years of history up in smoke

A disastrous fire devastated the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro: the event happened on the evening of Sunday, September 2, around 7:30 p.m. local time, when it was 00:30 in Italy. No casualties are reported at the moment (the fire broke out during closing time), but the very serious loss of the collections and archives is lamented: the flames, in fact, completely engulfed the Paço de São Cristóvão (“Palace of St. Christopher”), the historic neoclassical building, built between 1808 and 1821, which was formerly the residence of Brazil’s emperors and became the museum’s headquarters in 1892 (the museum, however, has been in existence since 1818, so much so that it had celebrated its 200th anniversary this year: before moving to the destroyed location, the collections were housed in a building at Campo de Santana). The collections apparently did not stand a chance. “All the historical archives,” said the museum’s director, Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, “were completely destroyed. Two hundred years of history are gone.” At the same time, Dias Duarte accused Brazilian authorities of a “lack of attention,” pointing out that the building was not being maintained effectively: in fact, the museum had recently undergone cutbacks. The origins of the fire are still unclear.

At the moment, however, there is no precise estimate of the damage, nor is it known exactly how many objects were lost: firefighters are working to recover what was spared from the flames. The National Museum of Brazil is a museum of natural sciences, anthropology, and archaeology and houses a collection of twenty million pieces, including Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquities, fossil finds, and objects from pre-Columbian and Brazilian archaeology. Major finds include the “Pedra do Bendegó,” the largest meteorite ever found in Brazil (it is over two meters long and one and a half meters wide), four frescoes from Pompeii and dating back to the 1st century AD, a collection of Etruscan and Greek ceramics, the collection of Andean mummies, the collection of ceramics from the ancient civilizations of Brazil, and the oldest skeleton found in Latin America (dating back about 12.000 years ago: it is a 20- to 25-year-old woman who was given the name “Luzia”).

“The tragedy could have been avoided,” pointed out Brazilian Culture Minister Sérgio Sá Leitão, who said that maintenance problems at the National Museum have accumulated over time. “The loss is irreparable. It is now essential to rebuild the National Museum, reviewing its management model and investing so that facts like this do not happen again. Let this tragedy serve as a lesson.” Also lamenting the great loss is the prime minister, Michel Temer, who calls the incident “a tragedy for culture” and says that “today is a sad day for all Brazilians. Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge have been lost.”

Brazil, fire ravages Rio de Janeiro's National Museum. 200 years of history up in smoke

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