Niiiice!
Posted on 10/25/2006 7:01:56 PM PDT by annie laurie
The skeleton of the fossilised, 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor known as Lucy, will go on display in the US, Ethiopian officials say.
After four years of negotiations with the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas, Ethiopia agreed to lend the bones for scientific study until 2013.
It is hoped Lucy's 11-leg tour will boost tourism and increase Ethiopia's profile as the "home of all humanity".
She will leave her country of origin - and the origin of mankind - in June.
As well as Lucy, the travelling exhibition will also include about 190 other Ethiopian artefacts including humankind's earliest stone tools.
Officials say money from the tour will be used to improve museums across the country.
'Mute ambassador'
After Houston, Lucy's skeleton will be put on display in Washington, New York, Denver and Chicago. Six other city destinations have yet to be confirmed.
Ethiopia's minister for culture and tourism, Mahmoud Driri told the BBC that the discovery of Lucy represented "the true story of Ethiopia being the cradle of human civilisation and the home of all humanity.
"She will be the only mute ambassador that can talk more than any other ambassador for the time being," he added.
Mr Driri said he hoped that a million tourists would visit Ethiopia within five years and that African Americans would look upon Ethiopia as their spiritual home.
"The bottom line is to make Ethiopia one of the 10 most important African venues," he said.
Lucy was discovered in Hadar, Ethiopia, in 1974 by a team of palaeoanthropologists who were fans of the Beatles' song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
For more than 20 years it was the oldest human ancestor known to science.
Please ...
(Yes, I know that my pleas will probably fall on deaf ears, but hope springs eternal. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong).
Ping
Wow - I'll have to go see that. Very cool.
Is this the one that Bill Clinton said was "hot"?
You're a dreamer. I like that. ;')
Thanks for the ping.
I do wonder if anyone is even looking for her brother Rerun.
Thanks for the ping.
I do wonder if anyone is even looking for her brother Rerun.
As for the first, I suppose so. I was actually annoyed enough at the lack of civil discourse this evening to make a somewhat curt remark to another poster, which is only slightly less rare than ... oh, say, the appearance of Tempel-Tuttle ;-)
But, I still have hope for the future ... tomorrow's a new day :)
In regards to Rerun, I don't even recall hearing his name until tonight (and after all those years of the Peanuts holiday specials as a kid!) ... the things one learns on FR! :)
No. You are confusing Lucy with "Juanita", a recently discovered Incan mummy exhibited at the National Geographic museum in 1996.
Clinton said of Incan mummy, "Juanita", not to be confused with rape victim Ms. Broderick: "You know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good-looking mummy,"
Mike McCurry supposedly joked to reporters afterwards: "Probably she does look good compared to the mummy he's been [expletive deleted].")
Lucy is an australopithecine found by paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray in 1974.
That's "BC" = Before Clinton
Niiiice!
:')
I've had similar exasperated moments on FR.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1627465/posts?page=51#51
"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do."
"WAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Heh; good one :)
That picture makes me wince ... yowch.
Very sad.
Hey, to the extent I was involved in that I didn't realize. Must not have kept track of my pings. Thanks for the link. Interesting.
I agree with you, but here's a huge difference between 'debate' and 'flame war' ... my original post referred specficially to the latter ;-)
specficially = specifically
Yikes. Note to self: use spell-check ;-)
They are not bones are they? They are fossils, which means that all bone substance has been leeched out and replaced by mineral matter preserving the shape only. Right? No DNA, IOW.
Will they exhume her? Will they show Ricky's bones, too?
;)
Will they exhume her? Will they show Ricky's bones, too?
;)
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