- The Czech National Museum exhibits Fossils of Lucy and Selam.
- The museum introduced time tickets due to the expected public interest.
- The remains of Lucy discovered in 1974 in the Hadar area.
The Czech National Museum (NM) in Prague has been exhibiting the world’s most famous skeleton Lucy and another rare selam fossil since Monday. By 23 October, people and their ancestors in the historic building of the Museum on Wenceslas Square will be part of the new exposition. It is the first time that these most valuable exhibits of Ethiopian cultural heritage are exhibited in Europe, says TASR newsletter in Prague.
Fossils Donald Johanson and Zesenay Alemseged also participated in the opening of the exhibition with the originals of the Australopithecus remnants (Australopithecus Afarensis). Lucy was the first to be discovered. Her remains from the period approximately 3.2 million years ago was found in 1974 by Johanson and his student Tom Gray in the Ethiopian Alfar Triangle in the Hadar area. 25 years later, Alemseged discovered the remains of a child’s skeleton over 100,000 years later in the nearby Dikika locality, which they called Selam. It is the oldest preserved baby skeleton.
Lucy, also referred to as the “Pratt of Humanity”, was about 106 centimeters high, weighed 28 kilograms and resembled more to chimpanza than today’s man. About 40 percent have been preserved from the original skeleton. The period when she lived was determined by the scientists according to the layer of volcanic rocks in which the fossil was found.
Outside Ethiopia, it was exhibited only in the United States during the tour from 2007 to 2013. The skeletal remains of incalculable scientific value were taken from Addis Aba to Prague ten days ago under extraordinary security measures. The museum for the expected increased public interest extended the opening hours and introduced time tickets.
