Museo Nacional de Historia Natural Chile | |
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| Established | 1830 |
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| Location | Santiago, Chile |
| Type | Natural history museum |
| Website | mnhn |
The Chilean National Museum of Natural History (Spanish: Museo Nacional de Historia Natural or MNHN) is one of three national museums in Chile, along with the Museum of Fine Arts and the National History Museum. It is located in Quinta Normal Park, and was founded in 1830 by the French naturalist Claudio Gay.
The museum is one of the oldest natural history museums in South America. It was founded on September 14, 1830 by the French naturalist Claudio Gay, commissioned by the Chilean government. Its first director was another Frenchman Jean-François Dauxion-Lavaysse. [1] Its original mandate was the biology and geography of Chile, with a concentration on crops and mineral resources. The existing museum building was constructed in 1875 as a palace, or pavilion, for the Chilean International Exhibition. [2]
In 1889 departments of botany, zoology, and mineralogy were established. The National Museum Bulletin (Boletín del Museo Nacional) was first published in 1908, and continues under the title Bulletin of the National Museum of Natural History (Boletín del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural).
Earthquakes in August 1906 and April 1927 damaged the museum. [3]
The museum has twelve permanent exhibits:
The oldest mummies in the world are held in the museum, around 7400 years old (2000 years older than their Egyptian counterparts). Fifteen of them were subjected to CAT scans in late 2016, with scientists hoping to learn more about the mummification process used by the Chinchorro people of Chile. The 15 mummies had been women and children upon whom different preservation techniques were used. [4] [5]
A collection of molluscs from Chile and other parts of the world is held in the museum. The collection dates to the beginning of the study of the natural history of Chile. Juan I. Molina collected 11 species of molluscs in 1782. French zoologists published studies of the molluscs in Chile in the 1800s. As of 2003, the mollusc collection was being organized and catalogued, including donations and exchanges made by director Philippi until the end of his term in 1897. Geologist Humberto Fuenzalida was director from 1949 to 1963; his tenure was marked by a grand expansion at the museum, with the formation of the malacology laboratory under tutelage of professor Nibaldo Bahamonde. [6]
Marine fossils from the late Miocene and the early Pliocene were quarried from marine sandstone deposits on the north-central coast of Chile in the early 1990s and added to the museum's collection shortly thereafter. [7]
The five departments are botany, zoology, entomology, anthropology, and paleontology. The department of botany includes a herbarium of 3700 species dating from 1830. 90% of the type specimens of Chilean species are housed here. The zoology department contains fourteen holotypes, mainly Chilean marine and freshwater fish. The anthropological department emphasizes the archeology of Central Chile through the Inca Empire and cultural artifacts of modern or recently extinct peoples of Chile and Easter Island. One of its duties is the caretaking of the Plomo Mummy.
The Museum is supervised by the Director of the National Cultural Heritage Service, [8] itself a division of the Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage: [9]
Rodolfo AmandoPhilippi was a German–Chilean paleontologist and zoologist. Philippi contributed primarily to malacology and paleontology, but also published a major work on Diptera of Chile. His grandson, Rodulfo Amando Philippi Bañados (1905-1969), was also a zoologist and in order to avoid confusion in zoological nomenclature, the elder is referred to as "Philippi [Krumwiede]" to distinguish him from his grandson "Philippi [Bañados]".
The Chinchorro mummies are mummified remains of individuals from the South American Chinchorro culture, found in what is now northern Chile. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, having been buried up to two thousand years before the Egyptian mummies. The earliest mummy that has been found in Egypt dates from around 3000 BCE, while the oldest purposefully artificially preserved Chinchorro mummy dates from around 5050 BCE.
Friedrich Max Uhle was a German archaeologist, whose work in Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia at the turn of the Twentieth Century had a significant impact on the practice of archaeology of South America.
The National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History of Peru is the largest and oldest museum in Peru, housed at the Palacio de la Magdalena, located in the main square of Pueblo Libre, a district of Lima, Peru. The museum houses more than 100,000 artifacts spanning the entire history of human occupation in what is now Peru. Highlights include the Raimondi Stele and the Tello Obelisk from Chavín de Huantar, and an impressive scale model of the Incan citadel, Machu Picchu. As of 2023, the museum is under restoration and very few rooms are open for visitors.
The Natural History Museum in Lima, is Peru's most important museum of natural history. It was established in 1918 and belongs to the National University of San Marcos.
Giorgio Jan was an Italian taxonomist, zoologist, botanist, herpetologist, and writer. He is also known as Georg Jan or Georges Jan. He was the first director of the natural history museum at Milan.
Karl Friedrich Reiche was a German botanist who worked as a university professor in Chile and Mexico.
Adolf Ernst was a Prussian-born scientist. Ernst settled in Venezuela in 1861, where he taught at the Central University of Venezuela. He became the most important scientist in the country during the second half of the 19th century and was a key figure in the creation of the Museum of Natural Science and the National Library of Venezuela, where he also served as its director.
Museo de la Naturaleza y Arqueología (MUNA), is a museum-based in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Tenerife,. It contains many significant archaeological finds and is considered the best repository of objects from the Pre-Castilian Canary Islands. The museum also houses significant paleontological, botanical, entomological, and marine and terrestrial vertebrate collections, and is considered the best Natural Library of the Canary Islands.
The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo near Santiago, Chile in 1954. It was discovered by Guillermo Chacón Carrasco, Jaime Ríos Abarca, and Luis Gerardo Ríos Barrueto. The mummy was brought to the attention of Grete Mostny at the Chilean National Museum of Natural History; she later proved instrumental in the museum's acquisition of the specimen. The Plomo Mummy was the first notable frozen mummy discovery of high-altitude Capacocha human sacrifice by the Incas, a practice called qhapaq hucha.
The La Plata Museum is a natural history museum in La Plata, Argentina. It is part of the Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo of the National University of La Plata.
Scurria variabilis is a species of sea snail, a true limpet, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Lottiidae, one of the families of true limpets.
The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the Colombian Andes before the arrival of the Spanish and were an advanced civilisation. They mummified the higher social class members of their society, mainly the zipas, zaques, caciques, priests and their families. The mummies would be placed in caves or in dedicated houses ("mausoleums") and were not buried.
Bernardo Arriaza is a Chilean physical anthropologist with an emphasis on bioarchaeology.
The Chinchorro culture of South America was a preceramic culture that lasted from 9,100 to 3,500 years BP. The people forming the Chinchorro culture were sedentary fishermen inhabiting the Pacific coastal region of current northern Chile and southern Peru. Presence of fresh water in the arid region on the coast facilitated human settlement in this area. The Chinchorro were famous for their detailed mummification and funerary practices. The area of the Chinchorro culture started to receive influences from the Andean Plateau around 4,000 BP, which led to the adoption of agriculture. Much later, it came under the influence of the Tiwanaku Empire.
Humberto Fuenzalida Villegas (1904–1966) was a Chilean geologist, paleontologist and geographer. Fuenzalida headed in turn the geography and geology departments of the University of Chile, being also founder of Sociedad Geológica de Chile, a professional society grouping Chile's geologists. In 1938 he took charge of the geological and paleontological collection of Chilean National Museum of Natural History by request of Ricardo E. Latcham. In 1948 he became director of the museum holding that post until 1964 when he was succeeded by Grete Mostny. Fuenzalida championed the establishment of a geology degree in the University of Chile, leading a successful effort in 1961.
El Molle culture was a South American archaeological culture from in the Transverse Valleys of Norte Chico known chiefly for its ceramics. The culture existed from 300 to 700 CE and was later replaced in Chile by Las Ánimas culture that developed between 800 and 1000 CE. This last culture then gave way to the historical Diaguita culture encountered by the Spanish in the 16th century. El Molle culture coexisted for a significant time with La Animas culture. It is possible that Las Ánimas culture learned copper metallurgy from El Molle.
The National Museum of Natural History in Montevideo is a natural history museum in Uruguay. It opened in 1838, and is the oldest scientific institution in Uruguay and one of the oldest natural history collections in the world. The museum's first permanent exhibition space is at Miguelete 1825—the former Miguelete Prison—and the scientific collections, library and administrative offices are at Calle 25 de Mayo 582 in the Old City.
Rodulfo Amando Philippi Bañados was a Chilean ornithologist. The great-grandson of German naturalist Rodolfo Amando Philippi (1808–1904), he worked at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Chile as a curator of birds and wrote extensively on Chilean ornithology. By profession, he was a pediatrician.
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