Quinta da Boa Vista
Imperial garden hiding a giant meteorite that outlived the museum fire beside it.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Quinta da Boa Vista in Rio follows a giant meteorite from the Bahia scrubland, where a cattle herder named Domingos da Motta Botelho found it in 1784, through a governor's failed attempt to cart it away and more than a century lying forgotten in a streambed. You'll hear how Emperor Dom Pedro the Second, an amateur scientist who filled this palace with antiquities, learned of it in Paris in 1886 and ordered a new expedition. The guide follows the oxen hauling the multi-ton mass over specially laid rails toward these gardens.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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