Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia

	From the Museum President Joel A. Bartsch
	Watch Lucy's Legacy TV Spot
	About the Exhibit

Ethiopia's rich cultural heritage, is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. “Lucy’s Legacy” introduces you to the incredible five million-year history of this fascinating country, known as the Cradle of Mankind.

More than 100 artifacts in the exhibit illuminate this rich heritage, including fossils, historical manuscripts, paintings, coins, musical instruments, implements of daily use, religious artifacts and more.

A Land of Kings

This exciting exhibit consists of two segments. Part one begins with the story of ancient Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Aksum. According to tradition, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, King Menelik became the founder of the Solomonic dynasty. The story starts with the kingdom of Aksum in the northern highlands of the country. During a period of roughly seven centuries, a succession of kings ruled a territory that covered large portions of present-day Ethiopia as well as neighboring Eritrea and portions of Yemen. This section follows the country’s rise in religious, economic and cultural power through the centuries, and ends with modern Ethiopia and the end of the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie I.

A Country of Discoveries

The second part of the exhibit examines the many species of early hominid that called Ethiopia home, culminating with the display of the world’s most famous fossil, Lucy. Even the Ethiopian public has seen Lucy only twice. The Lucy exhibition at the Ethiopian Natural History Museum in the capital, Addis Ababa, is a replica, the real remains are usually locked in a vault. Emphasis on geographic and chronological context will set the stage to tell the story of our ancestors. A wide variety of multi-media presentations and text panels will also elaborate on what anthropologists do, and how we get from finding a fossil to telling a story such as the one we will present in this exhibit.

Visitors will not only have the opportunity to come face-to-face with Lucy, but also meet with the earliest known members of our own species, Homo sapiens, who lived almost 200,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia. Other important paleoanthropological discoveries will also be represented to complete the current account of human evolution as known to scientists today.

http://lucyexhibition.com/