Today marks the final opportunity in Prague to see the 3.2-million-year-old fossils of human ancestors Lucy and Selam. Since the end of August, the National Museum has been displaying two of the oldest and most significant palaeoanthropological finds in the world.
Today, Thursday 23 October, visitors have their last chance to view the skeletal remains of the 3.2-million-year-old human ancestors Lucy and Selam at the National Museum in Prague. These precious fossils are among the oldest and most significant palaeoanthropological discoveries in the world and were loaned to the Czech Republic by the Ethiopian National Museum. Since 25 August, they have been on display in Europe for the first time as part of the exhibition Humans and Their Ancestors. Due to the expected influx of visitors, the museum introduced timed-entry tickets and extended opening hours – exact visitor numbers have not yet been disclosed.
Both exhibits are among the most valuable objects of Ethiopia’s national heritage. Their loan is based on an agreement between the two countries, supported by the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The archaeological discovery, made more than 50 years ago by palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson, former curator of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and his student Tom Gray in the Ethiopian Afar Triangle near the village of Hadar, caused a sensation in 1974. It is still considered one of the oldest known hominin specimens and a possible direct ancestor of the genus Homo.
Lucy belongs to the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis, which lived between 3.8 and 2.9 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia – a region crucial to human evolution. Scientists determined her age based on the volcanic rock layer in which the fossil was found.
Until now, only Lucy – the roughly 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis find – had left Ethiopia for a six-and-a-half-year tour of the USA (2007–2013). Selam – the fossil of a child of the same species, around 150,000 years older – has so far only been displayed at the National Museum in Addis Ababa following its discovery in 2006.
National Museum Prague (Národní muzeum)
Václavské nám. 68, 110 00 Nové Město
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