National Museum of Natural History in Chile
Encyclopedia
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago de Chile)
The Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts , located in Santiago, Chile, is one of the major centers for the arts both in Chile and in the larger region of South America...
and the National History Museum. It is located in Quinta Normal
Quinta Normal
Quinta Normal is a commune of Chile located in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. It is named after a large park in the area.-Demographics:...
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History
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 original mandate was the biology and geography of Chile, with a concentration on crops and mineral resources.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 today 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 have damaged the museum.
Exhibits
- Biogeography of Chile, a long tunnel that fills much of the first floor
- Interactive children's games for terrestrial ecosystems
- The Central Hall exhibits, including a 17-meter skeleton of a blue whaleBlue WhaleThe blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales . At in length and or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed....
- Minerals, with an emphasis on the nitrateNitrateThe nitrate ion is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. It is the conjugate base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically-bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a...
boom of the early twentieth century. - Insects, including large fossil dragonflies
- Mollusks
- Mesozoic era vertebrates, including a specimen of Carnotaurus sastrei
- Chilean timberTimberTimber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
- Chilean archaeologyArchaeologyArchaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
- Juan Fernández IslandsJuan Fernández IslandsThe Juan Fernández Islands are a sparsely inhabited island group reliant on tourism and fishing in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about off the coast of Chile, and is composed of three main volcanic islands; Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island, the first...
- Cultural anthropology, covering the Aymara, MapucheMapucheThe Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...
, Selk'nam, RapanuiRapanuiThe Rapa Nui or Rapanui are the native Polynesian inhabitants of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, in the Pacific Ocean. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the Rapa Nui people make up 60% of Easter Island's population, with some living also in mainland Chile...
, Kaweskar, and YámanaYamanaYamana may mean:* Yámana, an alternate name for the Yaghan language and people, in Chile and Argentina* Yamana clan, a Japanese clan * Yamana Gold Inc., a Canadian-based gold mining company operating in South and Central America...
. The museum houses the finest public collection of rongorongoRongorongoRongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It cannot be read despite numerous attempts at decipherment. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even...
artifacts in the world. - The uses of copperCopperCopper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, a collection of CodelcoCodelcoCODELCO is the Chilean state owned copper mining company formed in 1976 from the foreign owned copper companies that were nationalised in 1971. The headquarters are in Santiago and the seven-man board of directors is appointed by the President of the Republic...
, the state mining corporation
Departments
The four departments are botany, zoology, anthropology, and paleontology.The department of botany includes a herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
of 3700 species dating from 1830. 90% of the type specimens of Chilean species are housed here.
The zoology department contains fourteen holotype
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...
s, mainly Chilean marine and freshwater fish.
The anthropological department emphasizes the archeology of Central Chile through the Inca Empire
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...
and cultural artifacts of modern or recently extinct peoples of Chile and Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
. One of its duties is the caretaking of the Plomo Mummy
Plomo Mummy
The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo in 1954...
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