Lucy to return home in April after five year tour in USA
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ENA) – The skeleton of Lucy, a 3.2-million-year-old Ethiopian fossil, will come home in April 2013 after a five year tour in the USA, the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage of Ethiopia said.
The Ethiopian government has sent Lucy and 149 artifacts such as ancient manuscripts and royal artifacts from the dynasty of Ethiopians under the project “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia“.
“Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia” was on display in Houston, Texas and other cities of the United States since August 2007.
Authority Director-General, Yonas Desta told ENA that Lucy and the other heritages started the tour in ten States as per the agreement signed in 2000 EC between the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Lucy’s last exhibition will be displayed in Santana, California from February to April, he said.
The fossil of Lucy was discovered in 1974 at Hadar in the Awash Valley of Afar Depression.
Lucy is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago and is either directly ancestral to humans, or evolutionarily close to human ancestor, hence it is classified as a hominid.
The skeleton shows evidence of small skull capacity akin to that of apes and of bipedal upright walk akin to that of humans, supporting the debated view that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size in human evolution.
