Imágenes del traslado del meteorito ‘do Bendegó’ de Bahía a Río de Janeiro: fotografía, ciencia y exclusión (1887-1888)

Abstract

The Rio de Janeiro National Museum recently caught fire, destroying a collection of 20 million objects. The next day, during the searches, a discovery: at least one piece was saved. The so-called “Bendegó” meteorite, a huge block of iron, resisted the flames. The image of the intact meteorite amid the wreckage circulated in newspapers around the world.

The meteorite “do Bendegó” was found in the interior of the state of Bahia at the end of the 18th century. A century later, the meteorite was finally brought from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro by a group of engineers and workers that would become known as the “Bendegó Commission”. In this article, I will discuss the images of the expedition, as part of a broader process of appropriation and demarcation of the Brazilian nation’s territory. The photographs, as well as the articles published in the newspapers, allow us to perceive how science and violence have been combined in the history of 19th century Brazil.