Museum of Lost Objects: The fire that scorched Brazil’s history
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2019
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 prehistoric 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
Contributors: Cahe Rodrigues, carnival director; Dom João, photographer and descendent of Brazil’s last emperor; Laurentino Gomes, journalist and author; Monica Lima, historian; Mariza Carvalho Soares, historian and museum curator; Aparecida Vilaça, anthropologist and author of Paletó and Me; Bernabau Tikuna, linguist; Tonico Benetiz, anthropologist; Murilo Bastos, bio-archaeologist; Luciana Carvalho, paleontologist and deputy director of rescue Museu Nacional; Sergio Azevedo, paleontologist and director of Museu Nacional’s 3D printing lab
Voice over performances by: Fernando Duarte, Marco Silva, Silvia Salek; Thomas Pappon
Picture: Brazil’s National Museum – or Museu Nacional – on fire September, 2018 Credit: Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Kanish Thaurur and you're with the BBC World Service. This is the Museum of Lost |
| 0:05.8 | Objects, the program where we chart the personal histories of destroyed landmarks and artifacts. |
| 0:11.6 | Today I'm going to guide you through a real life museum of lost objects. |
| 0:17.0 | We explore the loss, the legacy, and the endurance of Rio de Janeiro's national museum. |
| 0:22.0 | We're coming to you from Brazil. |
| 0:24.0 | It's one of the biggest spectacles on Brazilian TV. |
| 0:31.0 | Every February, when Rio de Janeiro's top samba schools parade in the city's |
| 0:35.9 | samba draw. |
| 0:40.7 | For many it's the highlight of carnival. Last year there was perhaps an unlikely sequence in the parade. |
| 0:47.0 | Dinosaurs, giant replica skulls, scackling skeletal smiles, then dancers dressed as butterflies, bugs and beetles, all in skin-tight suits with feathers and glittering jewels. |
| 0:58.0 | Next Egyptian mummies, the regalia of West African kings. |
| 1:02.0 | It was the entire contents of a museum brought to life |
| 1:06.1 | in brilliant colours and fantastical costumes. At the very front of the parade, a |
| 1:11.2 | recreation of the museum's neoclassical facade, illuminated pillars and balustrades, |
| 1:16.6 | a building that was once a royal palace. |
| 1:22.4 | This wasn't any old museum. It was arguably Brazil's most important. |
| 1:27.0 | The Museo National Museum, one of the oldest museums in South America, and it had one of the most extraordinary |
| 1:38.8 | collections in the Western Hemisphere, 20 million objects. Everything from the fossils of ancient |
| 1:44.8 | scorpions to hand-drawn maps of Amazonian villages, to the biggest iron meteorite |
| 1:49.8 | in Brazil found in 1784 by a boy who was looking for a lost cow. |
| 1:57.0 | There was a custom for everything. |
| 2:01.0 | Kings, queens, queens, |
... |
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