Musée de l'Homme

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Fang mask from Gabon

The Musée de l'Homme (French for "Museum of Man") was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet, for the event of the World's Fair. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878. The Musée de l'Homme occupies most part of the Passy wing of the Palais de Chaillot in the 16th arrondissement.

The Musée de l'Homme has inherited from the historical collections created as soon as the 16th century in cabinets of curiosities and in the Royal Cabinet. These exhibitions would be enriched during the 19th century and still are today. Its aim is to gather in one site everything which may aim at defining the human being: man in his evolution (prehistory), man in his unity and diversity (anthropology), man in his cultural and social expression (ethnology).

The Musée de l'Homme is a research center under the authority of various ministeries, and groups several unities from the CNRS. Part of its exhibition will be transferred to the Quai Branly museum See [1]

Until 1974, the Musée de l'Homme displayed the remains of the "Hottentot Venus".

The brain of the famous Rene Descartes, a scientist, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher also resides in his museum.