The fire that scorched Brazil’s history
Listen now
Description
It’s been a year since Brazil’s National Museum burned down in a fire. Not only was its collection one of the most extraordinary in the world, but Brazil’s entire history ran through the museum. On the second floor you could meet the skeleton that was the ‘mother’ of all Brazilians; on the third, listen to Amazonian folklore about exploding jaguars; and downstairs, slide into the slippers of a slave king. Now, the only intact artefact on site is a huge iron rock from outer space – the Bendego meteorite. The National Museum and its precious archive of Brazil’s past may be in ruins, but amongst the ashes there’s a battle to revive it. Presenter: Kanishk Tharoor Producer: Maryam Maruf With thanks to Roberta Fortuna Picture: Brazil’s National Museum – or Museu Nacional – on fire September, 2018 Credit: Getty Images This edition of Museum of Lost Objects is broadcast on BBC World Service.
More Episodes
Published 06/23/20
The Museum of Lost Objects traces the histories of 10 antiquities or cultural sites that have been destroyed or looted in Iraq and Syria. With hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of people displaced and some of the world’s most significant heritage sites destroyed, the wars in Iraq and...
Published 06/23/20
Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated Bengali writer, is one of the greatest figures in modern South Asian history. In 1913, Tagore became the first non-westerner to win a Nobel Prize, but just over a decade ago, his Nobel medal was stolen – and still hasn’t been found. This episode looks at...
Published 07/26/17