How can history disappear?

Just a few days ago, on Sunday, September 2, the National Museum of Brazil, located in an old district of Rio de Janeiro, was lashed and ripped mercilessly by one of the most intense fires in recent years. 

In that long and terrifying night, millions of Brazilians across the country had their eyes glued to the news channels as if mesmerised by a flow of sparkles (as anyone might feel sitting by a fire) of incandescent, brightly yellow flames shooting up bursts of fire into the moonless night. 

The next morning, they woke up, as if from a bad dream, to see their museum utterly destroyed.

Perched atop a mound that once looked over the Guanabara Bay, the 200 year old building, lavishly modelled to be a palace in neoclassical style, served for over 80 years as the residence of the Portuguese royal family that in 1808 had fled Lisbon to Brazil in fear of an imminent invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France. 

In Rio de Janeiro, by 1822, in an unusual historical twist, the heir of the Portuguese throne, in alliance with a bourgeoning Brazilian elite, decreed the independence of Brazil from Portugal and became our first king. His son, Peter II, was crowned in 1840 and reigned peacefully until that monarchy was abrogated in 1888. Brazil then became a republic in its own right.

And so it happened that the republic chose the former royal residence to become the new National Museum and consequently to house an amazing slew of collections of naturalist and scientific materials that had been gathered carefully throughout the 19th century and stored in a much less imposing building. 

The collections included a variety of objects, some of a scientific nature, others more in the form of memorabilia and curios artefacts. 

One of these collections was a set of mummies which King Peter II had bought from Egypt. Another was a miscellaneous roster of vases and amphoras obtained from the unearthed town of Pompei that had been buried by the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. 

The new National Museum became not only an exhibitor but also a scientific institution in its own right. 

An institution for all

Over time, Brazilians have taken it for granted that they have a place they can take their children to visit any day of the week to get their first glimpses of how science develops and is organised, what exists and has existed in the natural world—animals, plants, insects, fish, archaeological and paleontological remains, even fallen meteorites—in their country now and in the remote past. 

Who are the original peoples who populated this vast, wondrous, and diverse territory? How do they live, how have they lived in the past, what do they eat, who do they pay reverence to – are just some of the questions the exhibits have sought to answer by presenting the material objects as symbols of their existence. 

Generations of children were inspired through these experiences. The Museum has always had a policy of not charging entrance fees and as a result it has became a popular and cherished destination across the class divide.

The National Museum has gathered and motivated its scientists to study and research palaeontology, ethnography, botany, mineralogy, archaeology, zoology in general. It was a bastion of knowledge for all of these disciplines as well as all contained all sorts of curiosities like as a meteorite found in the 1740s. 

All through the 19th century, naturalists from Europe and the United States together with their Brazilian colleagues would come to study, record, and classify newly recognised species. Many of those collections were deposited in the museum for further study.

On Tuesday morning, September 4, the firemen that had struggled with all their might, but to no avail, to curtail or at least ease up the blaze, in a twist of irony, become archeologists of a man-made disaster attempting to salvage what they could.

They saw and filmed quarters of complete desolation as they tried to quench the lingering blazes that insisted on rekindling for no apparent reason. 

The whole place was crammed with the charred wood of the formidable 200-year old roof beams, the distorted and crooked metal from gables and canopies, glass smithereens from quaint chandeliers, window panes, exhibition containers, and the remainder of charcoaled cloth of what once had been chair cushions, tropical bird feathers, fossil bones, fancy colonial furniture, sturdy cabinets, drawers, and cupboards that stored all sorts of scientific collections.

What in heavens could be saved or retrieved from that mess of debris? 

The firemen spotted and carried out one or two old ceramic vessels that had been once the burial container of a people that had lived on Marajo Island, located at the mouth of the mighty Amazon river; the amazing Bendego meteorite that had been carried out from the dry backlands of Bahia by improvised sledges pulled by mules and donkeys way back in the late eighteenth century, and lo and behold, some bone fragments of a skull that could be from the famously oldest human fossil that ever lived in South America, some 12,000 years ago.

Later the press interviewed some of the scientists that worked in the Museum. They were mortified at what had been lost, at least 90 percent of everything in the museum. 

Among the 10 percent that remained intact was the 100,000 volume library, but that was because it had been relocated previously to a modern annex next to the main building and had not been ravaged by the fire.

))))))

The only consolation one can have from this tragic incident is the little that is left. Not just for the scientists that work in the museum, but for all Brazilians, particularly children of all ages as they have been enjoying visiting the exhibitions for many generations since the late 19th century.

For many of the most destitute school children of Rio de Janeiro and neighbouring towns, the National Museum has been the place where they sparkle their imagination by experiencing  their first glimpses of science, culture, and history.

Compared to the cultural jewels of the world, like the Louvre in Paris, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and to go way back in time, the extinct Library of Alexandria in Ancient Egypt, that was burned down and devastated in the first century of our era, the Brazilian National Museum stands modestly as a small institution. But then, the history of Brazil is rather short and recent.

The 200 years of existence of the National Museum—our museum—has lost ethnographic artefacts made by native Indians whose cultures no longer exist. Those collections will be almost impossible to reconstruct, unless some European museum, like the Musee de l’Homme, in Paris, decides to return some the of material that was once collected by previous naturalists.

Our tragedy is bad, very bad for our nation. So much so that it has touched many people who love culture and history everywhere in the world. 

It has sparked sympathy and commitment from many areas. France, Portugal, Argentina, just to mention a few, have vouched to help with loaning pieces and helping refurbishing the building to become an even better museum. And just a few hours ago I heard the National Geographic pledge their services too.

So, there are motives for a mild optimism that in a few years, perhaps a decade, the National Museum of Brazil might be on its feet again and exhibiting all the beauty that a tropical land can show to the world.