There is a special gallery inside the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi where visitors slow down, lower their voices and often fall silent. In front of them, carefully lit and disarmingly small, lies the skeleton of Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old hominin.
Perhaps more than any other ancient relative, Lucy has challenged us to think deeply about what it means to be human.
Her ancient bones were discovered by an international team led by American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson in Ethiopia’s Afar region in 1974. This remarkably complete specimen of Australopithecus afarensis transformed our understanding of the human evolution story.
The skeleton’s discovery came a few weeks after the team had been energised when Ato Alemayehu Asfaw, an Ethiopian palaeoanthropologist and a member of the team who later became the Director of the National Museum of Ethiopia, found a jawbone from the same species.
Lucy’s skeleton provided clear evidence that walking upright preceded the expansion of the human brain, reshaping scientific narratives that had persisted for decades.
Named for the western world after the Beatles song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, the Ethiopian members of the team called her Dinknesh (“You are marvellous” in Amharic). She has served as an ambassador for Ethiopian cultural and natural heritage ever since. But while she became one of the most celebrated fossils in the world, very few people had actually seen her.
Ethiopian authorities tried to change that in 2007, working with American institutions to take Lucy to the US. However, a campaign by scientists who voiced concern about the safety of the specimen put a damper on the willingness of leading museums to put her on display. Lucy appeared at four venues before returning to Ethiopia in 2013.
Almost two decades later, Lucy has travelled overseas again – this time to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, of which one of us (Peter Kjærgaard) is director. Her visit comes at a time when not just the technology of transportation has changed, but the narrative surrounding the whole field of paleoanthropology.
A closely-guarded secret
Lucy’s latest journey outside her Ethiopian home was a closely-guarded secret. In the months leading up to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi’s opening in November 2025, a very small group worked behind the scenes on the logistics and safety of transporting her, as well as the delicate environmental conditions of the showcase that would be her new home.
A small team travelled to Addis Ababa to work closely with Ethiopian colleagues including specialists from the Ethiopian Heritage Authority and National Museum of Ethiopia. Every step required care, trust and precision.
Every single bone was meticulously packed and protected in special travel cases with individually designed cavity mounts. Nothing was left to chance. Nothing could go wrong.
Lucy arrived safely in Abu Dhabi just a few days before the opening of the museum. Still a secret, she was stored safely while the last condition checks and final work on the gallery was done.
Marc McAlester/NHM Abu Dhabi, Author provided (no reuse)
Lucy’s curator at the National Museum of Ethiopia, Sahleselasie Melaku, carefully placed the fragile bones in the display case. It felt like the rest of us held our breath for the entire time as we watched the pieces gradually transforming into the iconic outline of Lucy.
Finally, she was there in front of us. Ethiopia’s decision to share her was a powerful way to celebrate the opening of a new museum in a region where such institutions have historically been rare.
We have watched visitors encounter Lucy not as an abstract scientific object, but as an individual. The effect has been striking. People linger. They reflect. Many are visibly moved and quite often surprised by the realisation that this is not a replica, but the actual fossil – a being who lived and moved around our world millions of years ago.
Collaboration not colonialism
Lucy’s journey from Ethiopia to Abu Dhabi reflects a broader shift in how knowledge, heritage and authority are shared.
For much of modern history, discoveries from Africa were collected, studied, interpreted and displayed far from their places of origin. Now, that model is changing. Increasingly, African nations are asserting leadership over their cultural and scientific heritage, determining not only how it is preserved, but how it is interpreted, shared and shown.
Lucy’s presence in Abu Dhabi embodies this change. She has not been removed from her context; she has been shared through collaboration. She remains Ethiopian, and her journey is defined by a strong partnership – a model which we hope will build trust, strengthen institutions in both the UAE and Ethiopia, and open new pathways for shared research and education.
When the Natural History Museum opened in London in 1881, it was seen as a quintessential symbol of Victorian ambition, scientific curiosity and industrial power. In a similar way, the building of a Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi in the 21st century is a symbol of nationhood, global identity and scientific ambition.
The museum was designed from scratch to engage a modern audience in contemporary concepts such as biodiversity, conservation and human impacts. It opened at a time of global recognition of the need to decolonise many western museums, and included a rare collection of Late Miocene fossils (7-8 million years old) from the UAE, which had been returned from their longtime resting place in the London museum.
We believe the future of science depends not only on discovery but cooperation – on the ability to bridge regions, perspectives and histories. Lucy is helping to do that.
When she returns to Addis Ababa in July 2026, she will carry with her the imprint of this exchange. What remains in Abu Dhabi will be more than the memory of a remarkable exhibition. It will be a set of relationships between institutions, between countries, and between people and their shared past.
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