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Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural
History in Chicago, Illinois is located on Lake Shore Drive next to
Lake Michigan and is one of the museums in the Museum Campus Chicago
complex housing over 21 million specimens; although not all are on
display. A few of the most prominent exhibits include; Sue, the
biggest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex on display anywhere in
the world, a huge collection of dinosaurs in the Evolving Planet
display, a great amount of Native American artifacts, an enormous
and diverse collection of taxidermy items that showcase many big
animals, that include two prized African elephants and the world
renown lions of Tsavo, that were shown in the movie made in 1996,
the Ghost and the Darkness, and a very exciting number of human
cultural anthropology displays that include artifacts from Tibet,
the Pacific northwest and ancient Egypt. The museum started in 1893
as the Columbian Museum of Chicago with the express purpose of
getting and teaching the knowledge, preservation and displaying of
artifacts that pertain to the fields of science, art, history and
archaeology. In 2006, it had become the city main attraction, but
was outpaced by the Shedd Aquarium the next year. The library housed
at the museum was also started in 1893, to meet the needs of the
scientific community, and has become one of the finest resources of
biological systematics, archaeology, botany, environmental and
evolutionary biology, museology, geology, anthropology and related
subjects. The 275,000 volumes of the main research collections
contains all these important subjects, and there are three
indispensable collections in this realm; the Mary W. Runnells Rare
Book Room, the Institutional Archives and the Photo Archives. Other
highlights include; the Ayer Collection, the Laufer Collection, and
the Photo Archives. In May of 2000, the museum uncovered Sue,
the best preserved and most complete t-rex that has been discovered
so far. She is 42 feet long, 13 feet high at the hips and is
estimated to be 67 million years old. Sue Hendrickson was the
paleontologist that found the skeleton, and so the fossil was named
after her. The museum has been and will remain an educational
facility that offers many chances for informal and formal
instruction. Although the main means of teaching about the history
of these fabulous relics is the showing of exhibits, all through the
history of the museum, education has stayed important. The Harris
Loan Program started in 1912 giving the communities school children
an outreach program that offers lectures, artifacts, specimens,
audio/visual materials and activity kits to the Chicago area
schools. The numerous permanent displays are for the benefit of the
public and these included the animal specimens on exhibit like the
Mammals of Africa, Mammals of Asia, Nature Walk and other marvelous
displays. By perusing these fantastic displays, the curatorial and
scientific staff members give basic research in the fields of
anthropology and systematic biology and collaborates with the
Department of Education and Exhibits. Since the beginning, the
museum has been a world leader in ethnography, archaeology,
evolutionary biology and paleontology and has been a close partner
with local universities like the University of Chicago and the
University of Illinois at Chicago. In the Grainger Hall of Gems,
there are huge collections of gems and diamonds from across the
globe, which also houses a Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass
window; while the Hall of Jades highlights over 8000 years of
Chinese jade relics. The spectacular Underground Adventure allows
visitors a bugs-eye view of the world that thrives below our feet
and envision what the soil and insects look like at that size.
Inside Ancient Egypt, you can see what life was like for the ancient
Egyptians and marvel at the 23 mummies that are shown. This exhibit
contains a tomb that you can enter and view the 5000 year
hieroglyphs, as well as many other exciting and amazing artifacts.
The Evolving Planet exhibit gives you the history and evolution of
life on this planet that covers 4 billion years, with a large
dinosaur hall that showcases dinosaurs from every age. The Ancient
Americas display allows you to travel through 13,000 years of human
thought and achievements in the western hemisphere, where hundreds
of diverse peoples lived here long before the arrival of the first
European. The magnificent dioramas display show many kinds of
animals from hawks to tigers, and highlights the two lions known as
the Ghost and the Darkness. There is so much more to learn about
here, to see and discover for yourselves, and more information than
could possibly fit on one page of the internet. This is one of those
places in this country that has to be seen to be believed and
thoroughly enjoyed.
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