Brazil National Museum: ‘Little surprises’ salvaged from the ashes

Many Brazilians wept after their 200-year-old National Museum was destroyed in a devastating fire last September. Twenty million objects, many of them irreplaceable, were thought to have been lost. But eight months later, staff have salvaged more treasures than they expected, and there are hopes that one of the great museums of the world can be brought back to life.



Suddenly, a shout echoes round the blackened, roofless shell of the once-elegant room.




A tall young man in white helmet and black gloves is standing triumphantly on a pile of smashed tiles and plaster. Cradled in his palm is a small piece of carved stone with ancient hieroglyphics.

Pedro Luiz von Seehausen is an archaeologist, an expert on ancient Egyptian funerary monuments, who travels regularly to the Nile Valley to help excavate millennia-old pharaonic tombs.



Ironically – tragically – von Seehausen is wielding his trowel, using his archaeological training, to excavate his own workplace – to re-uncover ancient treasures that had already been uncovered by archaeologists in Egypt two centuries ago, but which were buried again when their new home, the National Museum of Brazil, went up in flames.
And what von Seehausen has just found in the debris is a fragment of a stele, a stone slab recording the deceased. It’s part of a collection brought from Egypt by Brazil’s imperial family, who did much to build up the museum, and who lived in the palace where it is now housed.