lupins:

lupins:

one of the oldest and arguably the most important museum in Brazil is burning to the ground as we speak. home to the portuguese royal family from 1808 to 1821, the Museu Nacional stored fossils, meteorites, pre-historic human skeletons and a variety of artefacts related to natural history. it holds two centuries of latin & brazilian history and now it’s all gone.

some of the things that are now lost forever: the largest collection of egyptian artefacts in latin america; the skeleton of the largest flying reptile ever found in Brazil; the oldest human fossil ever found in the country, named “Luzia” (over 11.000 y.o) and other 20 million extremely important relics and researches just burned to the ground. never to be seen again.

thanks to our government, of course, who didn’t want to pay the museum the necessary funds to make the essencial maintenances since 2014 (which by the way, costed less than a supreme federal court judge’s sallary: R$520 in a year).

another sad instance where the state’s indifference towards culture and history becomes painfully obvious. this is a massive blow to our cultural legacy.

all that in our independe week. happy independe for us, brazilians, who just lost our history and culture in a fire caused by ignorance and indifference.

in case you’re wondering, this is what the museum used to look like:

this is what it looks like now:

thousands of years of culture lost. happy independence week.