The Chilean National Museum of Natural History ( or MNHN) is one of three national museums in Chile, along with the Museum of Fine Arts and the National History Museum. It is located in Quinta Normal Park, and was founded in 1830 by the French naturalist Claudio Gay.

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 first director was another Frenchman Jean-François Dauxion-Lavaysse. Its original mandate was the biology and geography of Chile, with a concentration on crops and mineral resources. The existing museum building was constructed in 1875 as a palace, or pavilion, for the Chilean International Exhibition. 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 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 damaged the museum.

Exhibits and collections

The museum has twelve permanent exhibits: The oldest mummies in the world are held in the museum, around 7400 years old (2000 years older than their Egyptian counterparts). Fifteen of them were subjected to CAT scans in late 2016, with scientists hoping to learn more about the mummification process used by the Chinchorro people of Chile. The 15 mummies had been women and children upon whom different preservation techniques were used. A collection of molluscs from Chile and other parts of the world is held in the museum. The collection dates to the beginning of the study of the natural history of Chile. Juan I. Molina collected 11 species of molluscs in 1782. French zoologists published studies of the molluscs in Chile in the 1800s. As of 2003, the mollusc collection was being organized and catalogued, including donations and exchanges made by director Philippi until the end of his term in 1897. Geologist Humberto Fuenzalida was director from 1949 to 1963; his tenure was marked by a grand expansion at the museum, with the formation of the malacology laboratory under tutelage of professor Nibaldo Bahamonde. Marine fossils from the late Miocene and the early Pliocene were quarried from marine sandstone deposits on the north-central coast of Chile in the early 1990s and added to the museum's collection shortly thereafter.

Departments and oversight

The five departments are botany, zoology, entomology, anthropology, and paleontology. The department of botany includes a herbarium of 3700 species dating from 1830. 90% of the type specimens of Chilean species are housed here. The zoology department contains fourteen holotypes, mainly Chilean marine and freshwater fish. The anthropological department emphasizes the archeology of Central Chile through the Inca Empire and cultural artifacts of modern or recently extinct peoples of Chile and Easter Island. One of its duties is the caretaking of the Plomo Mummy.

Directors

The Museum is supervised by the Director of the National Cultural Heritage Service, itself a division of the Chilean Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage: