Brazil Salvages 1,500 Artifacts from Ashes of National Museum

Some 1,500 singed artifacts have been salvaged from the smoking remains of Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro two months after the tragic fire in September.

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"The rescue is only beginning, but the pieces found so far give us hope and encouragement," said the director of the National Museum, Alexander Kellner during a press conference.

A few of the artifacts recovered from the wreckage are a collection of random carvings from crystal, quart, and natural materials. Among the most recent discoveries were a doll from the Kayaja community, which dates back to the early 20 century, an urn from the Marajoara community, arrowheads and machetes preserved from the pre-Columbian era and Brazilian Emperor Pedro II’s reign.

Claudia Carvalho, a coordinator of the rescue teams, said, "For us, it is very important to rescue the pieces that were from the Emperor's collection.”

Approximately 90 percent of the museum’s collection, as well as items on loan from other museums, fed the flames that consumed the museum and lit the night sky on September 2.

A donation of US$200,000 was gifted by the German government to assist in the recovery of museum materials, data, research, and archaeology equipment.

The museum, the oldest and largest collection in Brazil by nearly 200 years, initially served as the imperial palace of Brazil and was considered Latin America’s largest museum of its kind and one of the five largest in the world of natural history.