Mastodawn

Quixoticgeek 1d ago

Two weeks ago, I went to a museum. Now long term followers, will not be surprised by this. I goto a lot of museums. In fact one of my favourite ways to spend an afternoon is mooching round a museum with a friend excitedly infodumping at each other about the artifacts. I've written numerous threads on the subject. Mostly positive, a couple less so. But the Museum I went to two weeks ago. The visit was an incredible mix of emotions that I'm still trying to digest. But I want to share with you.
1/n

Quixoticgeek 1d ago

I should have twigged something after looking at the first display case I saw after exiting the lift on the 1st floor of Das Wiener Naturhistorische Museum. I should have understood it immediately. It's a failing that it took me several hours of wandering around the museum for that to sink in.

The museum is undergoing construction work, so I had to take a slightly illogical route to get to the start of the incredibly well curated set of artifacts. I walked past all sorts of things to get...
2/n

Quixoticgeek 23h ago

back through time to where it begins.

And it begins with rocks.

Many of the natural history museums I've been to have started with dinosaurs. With fossils. But this museum? This one starts at the beginning, over 4 billion years ago as the earth forms. Oak display case after display case of rocks. Interpreatation boards on the walls explain how the earth forms. The different types of rocks. I've often moaned at modern museums not having enough artifacts on display. NHM Wien is not one...
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Quixoticgeek 23h ago

Of those museums. Display case after display case filled with hundreds of rock samples. I was actually kinda overwhelmed by this. I didn't really take many photos of the geology rooms. Something in a way I'm a little bit salty about...
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Quixoticgeek 23h ago

In fact I took more photos of the display cases than I did the rocks. I'm not much of a geologist, tho I did used to collect rocks as a kid. So after a few rooms full of rocks from earth. I entered the meteorite room.

NHM Wien has the largest collection of meteorites in Europe.

Six of the meteorites caught my eye. They came from mars. I admired them. I photographed them. I even posted a joke about them on fedi, which very few people got...

https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/116210234799385684

5/n

Next to the six 1 in a million meteorites from mars is a case with a single rock from the moon. Donated to the museum by NASA, and brought back by the crew of Apollo 15. I stood looking at this rock. My hand on the glass of the display case positioned as close as I could get to the rock sample. I said to myself. This is the closest I will ever get to the moon. I studied this rock for a few minutes before moving onto the next room.
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Quixoticgeek 23h ago

After rocks, came dinosaurs. There were some animatronic dinosaurs, which seemed to be delighting and scaring a group of school kids that were looking at them. In a dark display case along the wall tho lay a much more important find. One that completely revolutionaised how we understood dinosaurs.

The stone is small. About the size of an a3 sheet of paper. It showed a flattened toothed dinosaur.

A dinosaur with feathers.

Archaeopteryx.

This fossil changed humanity's understanding.
7/n

Quixoticgeek 23h ago

After the dinosaurs came the rooms about the development of humanity. We have a mammoth, stone age implements. Etc...

And then in one small room, off to the side of the room full of flint axes and arrow heads. A room simply labelled "Venus". Stood a small slate statue in a display case.

The statue is 36000 years old.

Beside the statue. The explanation in German and English reads:

8/n

Quixoticgeek 23h ago

"With her raised arm and slightly twisted upper body the figurine appears to be frozen mid-pirouette..."

I admired this incredibly well preserved peice of art. Not sure which is more impressive. The art itself, or that now, 36000 years later. I can look at it in a small dark room in Wien.

I read the explanation. But I'm not sure I really understood it.

Not yet atleast.
9/n

Quixoticgeek 23h ago

A few rooms further on. I once again met Lucy.

Long time followers will remember a thread about meeting Lucy in Madrid a couple of years back. https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/114932432182938901

I sent a message to a friend joking about how I keep meeting Lucy in museums.

By this point tho, my feet hurt, so I turned right at the mammoth and went in search of the museum cafe.

TBC

(Thread is gonna pause for a bit, the alarm just went off saying my dinner is cooked)

10/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

After a slice of Sacher Toort met sahne in the Museum Cafe, it was time to explore the second floor of the museum. Chronologically, what we had progressed to now could be considered modern. I walked past display cased full of beautiful irridescent butterflies. A room full of crabs. Fish. Reptiles. And amphibians. Each static. Imobilised in it's display case. The incredible. Old. Wooden display cases.

I should have understood.

But I didn't.
11/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

Because of the construction work, the rooms that normally contained bird exhibits were clsoed off. So In order to get to the next room, I had to go all the way back. Past case after case of inanimate taxidermied death.

It was quite a long walk. This museum is huge. I'd been walking for hours, and when I finally got to the next room in the numerical order the rooms are listed on the museum map. My feet hurt. So I sat on a bench next to a display cabinate.

12/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

The dark cabinet contained a taxidermy small dog like creature. Curled up on its side. As if resting by the fire in a modern home.

The animal had stripes in its back.

At first I didn't realise what it was. There was no obvious label explaining what the display was. But something looked familiar. I'd seen pictures of these before. But only pictures.

I rotated round on the seat and discovered the explanation of what I was looking at was on the wall behind me. It confirmed my fear.

13/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

I sat there on a bench next to the taxidermy Thylacine and cried.

If you don't know what a thylacine is. You won't be alone. They went extinct in the wild in the early 20th century. The last one died in Hobart zoo on Tasmania in 1936. You may have heard of this species by it's other name. The Tasmanian tiger. Because of the stripes along it's back.

Before white settlers colonised Australia, there were ~5000 of these magnificent animals. But now all we have to remember them by is...
14/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

A few black and white photos. And an even smaller number of taxidermy specimens in museums. I wondered how many other taxidermy animals I had walked past which no longer existed in the wild.

That's when the nagging feeling I'd had since the first display case kicked in.

The display case of Moa skeletons.

The giant flightless bird of New Zealand that went extinct shortly after the arrival of humans.

15/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

I started my walk back through the rooms. Stopping for a moment next to an elephant seal to marvel at just how huge these creatures are. I admired the whale skeleton on display opposite it. But to leave the room. you walk through an arch made from a pair of whale jaw bones. It's a familiar image. I've seen this arrangement in pictures of whaling stations taken across the world. A reminder of a time when humanity hunted these magnificient creatures to near extinction.

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Quixoticgeek 22h ago

A reminder of a time before humanity as a whole woke up and realised we must stop killing these magnificient creatures. When we literally understood.

[cetacean needed].

I walked back through more rooms. A room of bears. A room of Antilope. Room full of canids. And eventually. I got to the last room I hadn't yet visited. The last numbered room on the map. A map that started with the creation of the rocks the world is made up of. All the way through The evolution of humanity.

17/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

I stood there and looked at the last exhibit of the museum. A figure with a raised arm, slightly twisted upper body, as if frozen mid pirouette...

The taxidermy orangutan looked back.

It's empty lifeless eyes. This magnificent, intelligent sentient creature. In the wild orangutan are on the brink of extinction. Critically endangered according to the IUCN.

This whole museum is a giant monument not just to the natural history of this rock we all call home. But...

18/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

The dark colonial history that built it. The artifacts in this museum have been collected over a period of several hundred years. But a bulk of the collection dates from a time when humanity spread across the world, killing, destroying, pillaging.

Colonising.

I'm a white girl from Britain. I have absolutely no right to lecture any one on their nations' colonial past. That's not what I'm trying to do here.

But it's impossible to escape that this museum largely exists because of it.
19/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

What animals are there alive today, that children born now, will only ever see in museums like this ? As species after species is driven past the point of no return. Walking back from the Thylacine I passed a white rhino. There are two northern white Rhino left alive. Both females. The species is functionally extinct. And it will go fully extinct soon. Hunted. Killed. Destroyed by humanity.

This museum is incredible. A temple to the astounding miracle of the natural world...

20/n

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

It reminded me of something written by Douglas Adams in the book I consider his greatest work. One you should all read.

"Last chance to See"

The section in question is quoted on this page: https://liamlynch.ie/2023/11/is-this-our-last-chance/

The natural world is incredible. And for all the incredibly dark disturbing past that underlies a museum like this. It's places like this that allow many of us to get a glimpse of how amazing the natural world is. As DNA said.

"it is. And you should have seen the rest of it.”

21/21

Quixoticgeek 22h ago

Postscript:

I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with this thread. This museum was both incredible in its beauty, but also in the destruction it catalogues. The record of a world we've lost. It's an awful lot to think about. Thank you if you've read this far. And if you haven't already, go read "last chance to see"

Tyrone Slothrop 21h ago

@quixoticgeek I think that is exactly the message you’re bringing across with this beautifully written thread. Thank you!

Museums are indeed a place to learn about the world, and get a feel for the endless possibilities it holds - and for the things we’ve lost and destroyed.

Now I need to go to Vienna again.

Helge Wilker 21h ago

@quixoticgeek Thanks. It was wonderful to accompany you on that tour!

#DieMaskeBleibtAuf 21h ago

@quixoticgeek thank you for this thread!

Patrizia 21h ago

@quixoticgeek You don't need to be going anywhere with it - it stands on it's own as something to think seriously about.

I think it's made more powerful by there not being a specific goal that you're heading for, but simply sharing your thoughts and feelings as you progressed through the museum.

Dragon Vertigo 10h ago

@quixoticgeek Thank you for this thread. I've had a similar feeling visiting the natural history museum in Venice many years ago, alternating rooms with incredibly moving fossils of our most distant ancestors and rooms of hunting trophies.

I agree with previous comments, the sincere thank you's, the 'you don't have to go anywhere' and the agreeing sentiments.

There's a hundred deep dives to follow here, something I am in the habit of doing to avoid the current world situation, specifically, the USA.

It's exhausting, as many people are finding. Over in the only other social I have, I've lost people from shouting and sharing the seen disasters and the less seen harms.

This thread was an oasis. Thank you, thank you. You have a natural talent for communicating hard, thoughtful ideas.

Also thanks to the folks commenting!

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦51m ago

@quixoticgeek thsnk you 🙏.

HamishB223 22h ago

This is, I think, the correct response to museums: a mixture of wonder and horror. All the animals that were killed just to provide a 'specimen' for us to view.

Peter Brown 21h ago

@quixoticgeek I think the more I understand about colonisation the more I think the term should be invasion.
Colonising sounds quite peaceful, but in most cases the local inhabitants were defeated and subdued in battle. In many they were almost completely eliminated through ethnic cleansing.

@peterbrown I’d argue that a mere invasion is by far the lesser harm, even if it may begin a colonial project.

As a pākehā (more or less white coloniser New Zealander), I think it is critical to acknowledge that colonisation is an ongoing process that causes immense suffering, and that without that acknowledgement, perhaps even with, we are actively participating in continuing that suffering.

Peter Brown 21h ago

@hypostase anyway, returning momentarily to the purpose of the thread it sounds absolutely magnificent and a very well organised museum.
Early humanity was certainly colonising; later iterations have been a bit more violent.

But with the benefit of hindsight, both were extremely damaging

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦54m ago

@quixoticgeek 😂

@quixoticgeek Not to be that guy... But please CW this type of content! 😅

Quixoticgeek 21h ago

@hugh the whole thread? Or just parts of it? Which bits ?

@quixoticgeek The images with skeletons!

Quixoticgeek 20h ago

@hugh done.

@quixoticgeek thank you 🙂

Rick d Card 14h ago

@quixoticgeek I knew I saw a video of this animal and am sure you would appreciate it as much as I do. And yes what a tragedy they are extinct. One is the original B&W and then a colorized one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYXuhGzqiEY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gt0X-27GXM

The last known Tasmanian Tiger

YouTube

Rick d Card 14h ago

@quixoticgeek There's also a movie with Willem Dafoe called the Hunter 2011; not sure if you're interested in it.

Thijs_Goverde 21h ago

@quixoticgeek
Oh god, I've been there. I remember those rooms vividly.
Horrifying in so many ways.

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦57m ago

@quixoticgeek amazing photo! I've of course heard of Lucy, but this installation is wonderful!

Quixoticgeek 55m ago

@deborahh the display of Lucy in Madrid was even better. More dynamic.

https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/114932467965497450

Quixoticgeek (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image The skeleton I saw surprised me at first. I thought she was in Addis Ababa. I certainly hadn't expected to find her in madrid. Definitely not stood there to great people walking in. When I got closer tho, & read the plaque, which was in both English and Spanish, it was clear this was a plaster copy of Lucy's skeleton, and not actually Lucy. Lucy is of course a Australopithecus afarensis. An extinct species of hominid, that lived in what is now east Africa approx 2.9-3.9 million years ago. 2/n

(void *) social site

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦49m ago

@quixoticgeek oh yes, I see!

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦59m ago

@quixoticgeek wow, that's a beautiful fossil!

IcooIey 23h ago

@quixoticgeek Should the US ever again be a safe place to visit, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a sliver of moon rock on display that is touchable. It’s cool!
(But wash your hands well after!)

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/touching-piece-moon

Touching a Piece of the Moon

In the over 40 years our lunar touchrock has been on display, millions of people have walked through our doors and touched a piece of the Moon. Intrigued by this idea, staff photographer Jim Preston took over 60 photos of visitors touching our little piece of the Moon.

Jez Higgins 8h ago

@quixoticgeek Weird, isn't it? For a while I carried a few micrograms of lunar regolith around in my wallet. It was left over from an experiment I helped with (well, observed really) to measure the D/H ratio of trapped solar wind. I kept it, in its little glass envelope, because this was brought here by people strapped to a 100m tower of explosives across the fucking VACUUM OF SPACE. Seemed wrong to discard it.

Eventually I was asked to give it back as part of a NASA stock take or something.