A moment of silence for the ceaseless winnowing - Brazil National Museum this time

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe observed.

The ceaseless winnowing that progressively destroys history and its objects. The destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the Lisbon Earthquake, the London Fire, the bombing of so many historic cities during the Second World War, etc, etc. As someone who has always loved history in all its incarnations, this winnowing has always deeply disturbed me, even though I’ve come to accept its inevitability.

In being taken through the ruins of the Santa Rosa fires last year, I observed dozens of collector cars that had been burned to nearly nothing. (I’m not going to post pictures, too depressing.) Including a number of million dollar plus cars. Irreplaceable vehicles, some of them. Goodness knows how many collector watches were destroyed in just that fire, probably hundreds, maybe thousands.

(Obviously, far more important things happened during those fires and far more important things were lost, like peoples’ lives. I’m not trying to diminish that, but just draw a parallel with the Brazil fire, where no one died fortunately.)



The destruction of Brazil National Museum by fire, with its entire contents, ranks as one of the more momentous destructions of the decade, if not longer. The lists and photos of irreplaceable objects are overwhelming.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/reader-center/national-museum-of-brazil-photos.html

So, a moment of silence for our loss, a loss of a slice of our collective history.

Wow, so sad. This and Burt Reynolds really kills my day.

What’s mind boggling is a museum of that stature apparently had no fire alarms and sprinkler system.

To think - Burt Reynolds turned down the opportunity to play James Bond, Han Solo, opposite Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman AND John McClane in Die Hard...

As for the various disaster and resultant loss of history, well sadly much of it was man made. The fire at the Brazilian Nationals museum for example would have been stopped had a relatively rich Brazilian gvt not frittered its money on the Olympics and prioritised the countries heritage, and spent some money on sprinklers...

@khanmu :

Don’t forget rampant corruption. Seems like election to President in Brazil is only an intermediate step before being convicted and incarcerated.

Reminds me of a joke I heard just yesterday.
Two inmates were in a prison chow hall and one began complaining of the low quality of the food, the other inmate said "yeah, the food was much better when I was governor".

While many of the lost items were well documented and recorded in 3D that's no substitute for the physical objects that could be subjected to scientific testing to answer questions that might arise in the future.

Have they found the source or cause of the fire yet?

It just occurred to me that the Native Americans may be right in forbidding the moving of now buried artifacts. Things buried for thousands of years may very well last longer than things dug up and placed in buildings that are prone to fires and other disasters, such as deliberate destruction as has happened many times in the Middle East in recent times.

The fact it was a preventable disaster is the biggest tragedy. No one cared enough to spend the nominal amount of money to protect the treasures. Utter failure by the government, and the caretakers of the museum. Routine maintenance of infrastructure is not on the top of a politician's priority list.

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540669701/10-years-after-bridge-collapse-america-is-still-crumbling

It is indeed a tragic and incredibly stupid loss🙁. No corruption involved, just blatant incompetence. My young son had visited the museum just a week before the fire on a school trip and there were tears in his eyes, seeing live on TV the rampant fire destroying all, framed against the dark sky of Rio.

The National Museum was under the management of the Federal University of Rio, an academic institution that local media in Brazil have reported as being run by a left wing middle class politically driven elite that would often flee engagement with the private sector. The museum employees did the best they could with the ridiculous low level of financial resources they got via the University funds.

This fire is something all Brazilians should be ashamed of. As a dual Brazilian/UK national I certainly am🙁. The rich "upper crust" Brazilian families hardly ever visited this museum, after all they could always travel and visit the Louvre, British Museum, Natural History Museums in London and New York etc🙄

I think a tragic vicious circle developed: poor funding leading to mediocre facilities, leading to lack of interest from the "elite class" and poor political/media visibility . As a family we did visit the museum with our children and their local school (very strong on reinforcing cultural interest) also scheduled regular visits.

As someone who was fortunate to be raised in London,and every Saturday from the age of 8-11 be involved in the Natural History Museum's youth activity centre (near the Whales hall), where often we would be taken on behind the scenes tours of the huge archive...knowing that my son and daughter are fortunate to have the resources to visit the NHM / British Museum etc (as they have done in the past) is zero comfort. For thousands of lower middle / working class Brazilians the National Museum would be the only chance to see an Egyptian mummy, for example, and have the wonderful sense of awe of being in contact with an ancient / mystical civilization.

The National Museum should have been run with a non-profit private foundation model. I am sure many companies in Brazil would have jumped on the marketing opportunity to partner with a well run foundation to invest funds in the museum and reduce tax burdens...Brazilian Natura cosmetics multinational (they recently acquired UK Body Shop) springs to mind. Other museums in Rio and São Paulo that have opted for a non-profit private foundation management model are doing well.

Some of the small positives after the fire come from the several international museums that have generously volunteered to help👍 and there is a strong social media driven effort within Brazil to recover a collective digital memory of the Museum's content and what it looked like. Thanks to the OP @airansun for bringing awareness to this issue here on the OF.

Another travesty of history

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jonmichaelpoff/statue-restoration-fail-spain

It's almost like a train wreck one can't stop looking at.

have fun
kfw

This piece in native wood was beautiful to behold and to imagine how it looked when it was first created and displayed, and now it's a total joke.

The museum contained records of several indigenous languages that are no longer spoken. Now they are lost forever. Its a tragedy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/brazil-rio-de-janeiro-museum-fire/569299/