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News > Culture

'A Miracle, After This Tragedy': Prized 'Luzia' Fossil Recovered From Brazil Museum Fire Debris

  • Skull of ancient human found in burned Brazilian museum

    Skull of ancient human found in burned Brazilian museum | Photo: Reuters

Published 20 October 2018
Opinion

The fossil remains were the prize of the museum’s over 20 million artifacts that were destroyed in September's fire.

The oldest known human fossil in the Americas has been found in the remains from Brazil’s National Museum, which was ravaged by a fire last month.

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Brazil: Heart-Wrenching Effort To Salvage National Museum Items

The skull of Luzia, the star of the 200-year-old museum’s collection, has been rescued in fragments.

While damaged and currently missing 20 percent of its mass, it was saved in part by a cabinet that fell over the fossil’s glass encasing, according to the museum's deputy director Cristiana Serejo.

"A miracle, after this tragedy," Serejo said.

The fossil was discovered in 1975 in Minas Gerais, central Brazil. Radiocarbon dating and other tests identified the skull as belonging to a 25-year-old woman from 11,500 years ago.

The vast majority of the museum’s collection was destroyed when a blaze ripped through its structure on September 2. The museum’s collection was the largest in Latin America and globally recognized.

The reconstructed skull of Luzia based on fossil remains, 2015 | Wikimedia Commons

Over 20 million artifacts were left vulnerable during the fire, including Egyptian artifacts, archeological finds and historical memorabilia. It is estimated 90 percent of the collection was destroyed. The cause of the blaze is still unknown and under investigation.

“When I saw the news about the tragedy, I just started crying, and all my colleagues, other archaeologists I know in Brazil, they had the same reaction—that’s a loss for all the world,” Maria Ester Franklin Maia Silva, a Brazilian archaeologist and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo told National Geographic.The fire prompted an outcry against the government’s austerity measures and the deterioration of the country’s cultural institutions.

The museum's directors have accused the federal government of years of insufficient funding while the Brazilian government has accused Rio's federal university of failing to pass on money to the museum.

Dyogo Oliveira, president of the state-run development bank BNDES, announced a 25 million reais ($6 million) plan to fund fire prevention measures at national monuments across the country.

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