The 200 years old National Museum of Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro has been converted to ashes.
 
Most of the 20 million items it contained, including the oldest human remains ever found in the Americas, are believed to have been destroyed, along with research efforts of 200 years, of many generations of curators and researchers.
 
We hope that most of the items and the research results are accurately digitized, at least to preserve the information, the images, 3D models in high res and metadata, in order to be able to provide access and the possibly reconstruct them, for the future generations of citizens and researchers, to this immense and invaluable source of information and cultural heritage of the humanity. Digitization is also a safeguard and preservation medium, that could partly compensate the immense loss of the cultural heritage community world wide, due to various disasters.
 
See details in BBC

Brazil’s 200-year-old national museum hit by huge fire

 

 

Georgios Giannoulis Gianoulopoulos