Description of the attraction
There are about 20 museums in Mozambique, but only a few of them meet international requirements. These include the National Museum of Geology, which was opened in 2001 with the aim of collecting and displaying the country's minerals to the general public. The museum occupies a building located at the intersection of the long 24 July Avenue and the Martires da Machava Avenue, which used to be a synagogue. There is also a working synagogue in Maputo. It can be found just a few blocks from the National Geology Museum.
The museum is the successor to the now closed Geological Museum Freire de Andrade, founded in 1940. His collection consisted of documents related to geology, a selection of stones and minerals. The museum was closed and rebuilt several times. In 1978, the museum was located on June 25 Avenue. His collection became so vast that it could no longer fit in the exhibition halls. Because of this, the museum was closed. It was only thanks to the intervention of the late President Zamora Machel that a new exhibition space was allocated to the museum - Villa Margarida from the beginning of the 20th century.
Currently, the collection of the Geological Museum has 5,853 items, 800 of which are part of the permanent exhibition. Of greatest interest to guests are precious and semiprecious stones, technically valuable industrial minerals and crystals of large size. For example, the world's largest crystal is stored here - rubellite 50 cm high, which was discovered in 1956 in the province of Zambia. It should be noted that a portion of this crystal is at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States of America.
