Unknown Artist
Today, a massive, devastating fire has largely destroyed the 200-year-old National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional) in Rio De Janeiro. The museum's collection contains more than 20 million items, and so far initial reports don't indicate how much of this precious material could be forever lost to science, and to the collective history of humanity.
On this extremely sad day, this is the only thing we could do—we have rescheduled a painting of Monet we were planning to publish today and publish this funerary urn that belonged to the Museum of Brazil's collection.
The collection of Brazilian archaeology of the National Museum brought together a vast set of artifacts produced by the cultures that flourished in the Brazilian territory during the pre-colonial era, with more than 90,000 objects. It was considered the largest collection in its typology worldwide. Let this anthropomorphic funerary urn be a silent symbol of today's horrible events.