Museums want to help destroyed Rio museum

lead - The twelve largest natural history museums in the world, including Naturalis in Leiden, lend a helping hand to the fire-ravaged Brazilian National Museum. 'While our colleagues in Brazil look to the future, we will make a strong effort to assist them where we can in the coming weeks, months and years,' said the museums in a statement.

Naturalis and the other museums do not know exactly what they can do for the Brazilian museum. Director Edwin van Huis calls it an 'open invitation. '

Because of the fire a large part of the collection of the 200-year-old museum has been lost. The collection consisted of some 20 million objects. The museum had a geological, botanical, paleontological and archaeological collection. In addition, it had Egyptian mummies, Greek statues and Etruscan objects.

The twelve museums write that the importance of the collection 'can not be overestimated. 'It is' not just a loss for Brazil, but for the world. '