Brazil Lost National Museum in Fire

92.5% of its archive of 20 million items were destroyed

The National Museum of Brazil Burning 2 September 2018

Brazil’s oldest and most important historical and scientific museum was consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20 million items destroyed on September 2, 2018.¹

Likened to Burning of Library of Alexandria

Neglect by successive governments was a cause of the fire. Curators "fought with different governments to get adequate resources to preserve what is now completely destroyed." ² The museum lacked a fire sprinkler system, and did not receive the R$520,000 per year necessary for its maintenance since 2014. It closed temporarily in 2015 when cleaning and security staff could no longer be paid. Repairs to a popular exhibit hall had to be crowd-funded, and the museum's maintenance budget had been cut by 90 per cent by 2018.

Mércio Gomes, an anthropologist and former president of Brazil’s indigenous agency, Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI), compared the loss to the burning of the library of Alexandria in 48BC. “We Brazilians only have 500 years of history. Our National Museum was 200 years old, but that’s what we had, and what is lost forever.”

All indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore-Gone.

“Folks, there’s nothing left from the Linguistics division. We lost all the indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore, the Curt Niemuendaju archives: papers, photos, negatives, the original ethnic-historic-linguistic map localizing all the ethnic groups in Brazil, the only record that we had from 1945. The ethnological and archeological references of all ethnic groups in Brazil since the 16th century… An irreparable loss of our historic memory. It just hurts so much to see all in ashes.”³

The museum celebrated its 200th anniversary in June 2018 in a situation of partial abandonment. No state ministers attended the occasion.

1. Graham, Flora. “Monday Briefing: Catastrophic Fire at Brazil’s National Museum Likened to Burning of Library of Alexandria.” Nature (London), 2018.

2. Phillips, Dom (3 September 2018). "'200 years of knowledge lost': fire engulfs Brazil's national museum". The Guardian.

3. McCulloch, Gretchen (2018). "Folks, there's nothing left…". All Things Linguistic.