Tragedy at the Brazil National Museum

Brazil’s oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20 million items is believed to have been destroyed.

The fire at Rio de Janeiro’s 200-year-old National Museum began after it closed to the public on Sunday and raged into the night. There were no reports of injuries, but the loss to Brazilian science, history and culture was incalculable, two of its vice-directors said.

Photo of the fire from the BBC

Compounding the tragedy are reports that the museum had recently finished a deal with the government for funds that included a fire prevention project. Most of the accounts coming in are that only a tiny portion of the on-site collection survived. It seems that in recent years, the museum has been starved for financial resources and in bad need of upkeep.

I don’t know much about what the collection housed by way of Bible-related artifacts, but Pete Williams shares this on Twitter:

Hebrew material presumably lost in the fire of the National Museum in Rio. #museunacional#hebrewhttps://t.co/sKuz7AeCSK

— Dr Peter John Williams (@PeterJWilliams9) September 3, 2018

I remember my dear old friend #KennethAKitchen showing me the catalogue he made of the Egyptian Collection of the National Museum in Rio, which tragically burnt last night. Ken has done a lot to promote this collection. #museunacional#MuseuNacionaldoRio#kenkitchen#egyptology

— Dr Peter John Williams (@PeterJWilliams9) September 3, 2018

The Twitter user known as Incunabula also shares that the museum’s library, containing nearly half a million volumes, was also engulfed.

Also it appears entirely destroyed in the Rio fire last night was the Biblioteca do Museu Nacional, arguably the most important science and natural history library in Brazil, with 470 000 volumes including irreplaceable treasures such as the 1572 first edition of “Os Lusíadas”. pic.twitter.com/S8VMFJ94xS

— Incunabula (@incunabula) September 3, 2018

If anyone knows of any particular Christian or Bible-related artifacts in the collection, let us know in the comments.