Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Natural history museum in Belém, Brazil.
The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi is a natural history museum in Belém spread across multiple locations, including a 5.4-hectare zoological park, a research campus, and a scientific station in Caxiuanã forest. The collections hold over 4.5 million specimens and artifacts covering natural sciences and ethnography.
The institution was founded in 1866 by naturalist Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna and later renamed to honor Swiss naturalist Emílio Augusto Goeldi. This change reflected growing recognition of its role in advancing scientific research across the Amazon region.
The museum holds roughly 15,000 ethnographic objects showing material culture from 119 indigenous peoples across the Brazilian Amazon. These items reveal the craftsmanship and everyday objects that shaped daily life in these communities.
The grounds spread across several areas with gardens, animal exhibits, and display spaces that you can walk through at your own pace. Wearing comfortable shoes and allowing time to explore the different sections is advisable, as the space is quite expansive.
The museum houses the Jacques Huber Aquarium from 1911 and the Rocinha pavilion from 1879, blending historic structures with rotating and permanent displays. These older buildings hold a sense of the original architecture from the museum's early days.
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