On the night of September 2, 2018, a fire broke out at Brazil's National Museum, destroying the country's oldest scientific facility and one of South America's largest and most important museums. The museum announced Tuesday that it has received a major donation of ancient Brazilian fossils to help rebuild its collection ahead of its planned reopening in 2026.
Burkhard Pohl, a Swiss-German collector and entrepreneur who manages one of the world's largest private fossil collections, has handed over some 1,100 fossil specimens, all from Brazil, to the National Museum. The donation is the largest and most scientifically significant donation to date for the museum's reconstruction effort, which lost 85 percent of its nearly 20 million specimens and artifacts in the fire.
The move will also bring back scientific treasures to a country where natural heritage has often been lost across borders, and presents a potential global model for building natural history museums in the 21st century. I will do it.
“The most important thing is to show to the world in Brazil and abroad that we are uniting civilians and public institutions,” National Museum Director Alexander Kellner said. “Hopefully, others will follow this example and help out with this really tough job.”
Natural History Museums go far beyond the general exhibitions they host to preserve the world's scientific and cultural heritage for future generations. A fire in 2018 destroyed the National Museum's entire insect and spider collection, as well as an Egyptian mummy purchased by Brazil's former imperial family.
The flames also consumed more than 60 percent of the museum's fossils, including some of the specimens scientists used to identify Brazil's long-necked dinosaur Maxacarisaurus. The newly donated fossils include plants, insects, two dinosaurs that may represent new species, and two elaborate skulls of pterosaurs, flying reptiles that soared above dinosaurs. The donation also includes previously studied fossils, including the mysterious reptile Tetrapodophis, which was identified in 2015 as a “four-legged snake” but is now thought to be an aquatic lizard. .
Dr Paul, who comes from a family of collectors of art, minerals and fossils, said his donation aims to ensure that the National Museum of Brazil has a comprehensive and accessible collection of Brazil's own fossil heritage.
“Collections are organisms,” Dr. Paul said in an interview. “If it's locked up, it's dead. It needs to live.”
The bones provide a snapshot of life in what is now northeastern Brazil 115 to 110 million years ago, when the region was a wetland dotted with lakes and young, growing animals. It was frequently flooded by the Atlantic Ocean. Over time, these ancient bodies of water formed the Crato and Romualdo Formations, limestone deposits in the Araripe Basin that are now used by quarries to extract raw materials for cement production. Lurking among the rocks are perfectly preserved fossils, some of which were formed along ancient coastlines when bodies of organisms were quickly covered in microbial mud and then buried. The Krato fossil was crushed flat like a pressed flower. Romualdo's fossil was buried inside a block of stone.
Since 1942, Brazil has treated fossils as national property and strictly prohibited their commercial export. However, for decades, Brazilian fossils from the Crato and Romualdo Formations have been distributed on the global fossil market and sold to museum holdings and private collections around the world, including Dr. Paul's collection.
Excited to have the fossil back in their home country, Brazilian paleontologists emphasized the research and training opportunities it represents and the positive precedent it could set for other donors. “It's probably very positive to show other collectors that you can do things in an amicable way,” said Taissa Rodríguez, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Espírito Santo in Brazil.
The seeds of Dr. Paul's donation were planted in 2022, when Dr. Kellner met Francis Reynolds, founder of a Brazilian arts nonprofit called Instituto Incursartis. She quickly accepted the mission to rebuild the National Museum's collection and reached out to her network of collectors to secure long-term financing and donations.
“If we humans can't help but can't help, then we can't expect anything from anyone else,” Reynolds said. “It was a lot of work, but a great experience.”
Reynolds learned about Dr. Paul's fossil collection through his son, who manages a gallery owned by Dr. Paul's Interprospect Group, a Swiss-based fossil and gemstone company. After a year of negotiations, the fossils were shipped to Brazil in 2023. It is being stored in a temporary facility until the main museum building is repaired.
In addition to fossils, the National Museum has partnered with the Interprospect Group to conduct collaborative research in the United States. Last summer, a group of six Brazilian paleontologists and students visited Thermopolis, Wyoming, where Dr. Paul runs a private fossil museum. There, the Brazilian team will help excavate fossils that may later be added to the National Museum's collection.
Dr. Kellner and Ms. Reynolds are actively soliciting donations and cooperation, and international organizations are responding to the call. Last year, the National Museum of Denmark donated a red cloak made from ibis feathers made by Brazil's Tupinamba people, one of only 11 such artifacts left in the world. . The museum is also working closely with Brazil's indigenous groups to rebuild the museum's ethnographic collections.
“This could be a major turning point,” Dr. Kellner said. “This is really about the future of our people.”