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MUSEUM

Paris: The Museum of Mankind all set to reopen

It’s taken six years and nearly €100 million but one of Paris’s great museums, the Museum of Mankind is finally about to reopen to an expectant public.

Paris: The Museum of Mankind all set to reopen
The museum is set to reopen on Sunday. Photo: AFP

As if Paris didn’t have enough going for it, one of the City of Light's prodigal sons is returning to the fold.

The newly renovated Museum of Mankind (Musée de l’Homme) will open its doors this Sunday offering visitors an insight into the long and often mysterious history of mankind.

On Thursday President François Hollande visited the museum for the official inauguration along with French Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.

 

One of the centrepieces is the celebrated Venus of Lespugue, a 25,000-year-old mammoth ivory statuette from France’s southwest, while another fascinating exhibit includes 80 real-life models of humans from across the globe.

Critically, the museum with stunning views of the Eiffel Tower will also play host to 150 researchers working on everything from biology to philosophy.

It’s a stunning turnaround for an institution that had a near-death experience.

In 2009, Former French President Jacques Chirac ransacked the museum’s collection, moving some 300,000 to the Quai Branly museum of arts and civilisations.

Meanwhile, many of the other exhibits went to MuCEM, the shiny new museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations in Marseille.

The stripping of the collections saw many ask whether it was time to close the doors of the Museum of Mankind one last time.

Now, however, directors are hoping the research aspect of the Museum of Mankind and its new focus on humanity’s place in the universe will breathe new life into the institution.

(All photos: AFP)

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MUSEUM

German police arrest fugitive twin over Dresden museum heist

German police said Tuesday they have arrested one of two fugitive twin brothers from the so-called Remmo clan wanted over their suspected role in snatching priceless jewels from a museum in the city of Dresden.

German police arrest fugitive twin over Dresden museum heist
Archive photo from April 2019 shows the Jewellery Room of the Green Vault. Photo: DPA

The 21-year-old suspect was detained in Berlin on Monday evening over what local media have dubbed one of the biggest museum heists in modern history, a spokesman for the police in the eastern city of Dresden said.

The twins had eluded German authorities when they carried out raids last month and arrested three members of the Remmo clan, a family of Arab origin notorious for its ties to organised crime.

Police then named them as 21-year-old Abdul Majed Remmo and Mohammed Remmo.

All five suspects are accused of “serious gang robbery and two counts of arson,” Dresden prosecutors said.

Police did not immediately name the arrested twin. His brother remains on the run.

The robbers launched their brazen raid lasting eight minutes on the Green Vault museum in Dresden's Royal Palace on November 25th, 2019.

READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about the Dresden museum heist

Having caused a partial power cut and broken in through a window, they snatched priceless 18th-century jewellery and other valuables from the collection of the Saxon ruler August the Strong.

Items stolen included a sword whose hilt is encrusted with nine large and 770 smaller diamonds, and a shoulderpiece which contains the famous 49-carat Dresden white diamond, Dresden's Royal Palace said.

The Remmos were previously implicated in another stunning museum robbery in the heart of Berlin in which a 100-kilogramme gold coin was stolen.

Investigators last year targeted the family with the seizure of 77 properties worth a total of €9.3 million, charging that they were purchased with the proceeds of various crimes, including a 2014 bank robbery.

READ ALSO: €1 million gold coin stolen from iconic Berlin museum

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