The human ancestors Australopithecus afarensis, ‘Lucy’ and ‘Selam,’ will visit Prague in August! The National Museum and the Ethiopian Ministry of Tourism will present some of the most valuable and oldest palaeoanthropological exhibits to museum visitors in Prague.
Some of the most valuable and oldest palaeoanthropological exhibits in the world—Lucy and Selam—will be on display for two months, from 25 August this year, in the new exhibition Man and His Ancestors in the Historical Building of the National Museum. The original skeletal remains of one of humanity’s earliest ancestors will be presented for the first time in Europe.
Both exhibits are among the most valuable objects in Ethiopia’s national cultural heritage. Their loan is based on an agreement between the two countries, supported by the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
“Welcoming Lucy and Selam to our premises is the dream of every museum worldwide. The National Museum is now beginning to realize this dream. Some of the most valuable artefacts on our planet give us a unique insight into the past and help us to better understand the roots of humanity. I greatly appreciate the trust and support of the Ethiopian side,” says Michal Lukeš, Director General of the National Museum.
The archaeological find—discovered more than 50 years ago in Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle near the village of Hadar by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, former curator of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and his student Tom Gray—caused a sensation in 1974. To this day, it is considered one of the oldest known hominin representatives and a possible direct ancestor of the Homo genus.
Lucy belongs to the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis, which lived 3.8 to 2.9 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia—a region of crucial importance for human evolution. Scientists determined its age based on the volcanic rock layer in which the fossil was found.
Thanks to its exceptionally good preservation, it was possible for the first time to precisely reconstruct the general appearance and lifestyle of the australopithecines. No later palaeoanthropological find has aroused so much public interest or influenced our understanding of evolution so significantly.
It got its name from the Beatles song ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ which was played repeatedly by the expedition team on the evening after the discovery. In Ethiopia, she is also known as Dinkinesh, which means ‘you are beautiful’ in Amharic.
Ethiopia will also lend the skeletal remains of Australopithecus afarensis called Selam to the National Museum in Prague. This remarkably well-preserved fossil of an infant is around 3.3 to 3.2 million years old and was discovered in 2000 near Lucy’s site—around ten kilometres from Hadar in the village of Dikika. Selam is around 100,000 years older than Lucy.
The loan of the two artefacts marks the beginning of close cooperation between the museums of the two countries. The National Museum will also be involved in the modernisation and further development of the museums in Ethiopia.
National Museum Prague (Národní muzeum)
Václavské nám. 68, 110 00 Nové Město
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