Tanzania’s Vice President, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan has inaugurated a state-of-the-art museum at the Olduvai Gorge. Speaking during the ceremony, Ms Hassan said she was optimistic that the museum would help increase the number of tourists and researchers visiting the country.
“Olduvai Gorge is where the history of a human being can be traced, so I think with this modern museum a lot of tourists will flock to this area,” said the Vice President. She also thanked the European Union for funding the construction of the museum. Ms Hassan directed the ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to ensure that the museum is advertised across the world.
For his part, the minster for Natural Resources and Tourism, Prof Jumanne Maghembe reiterated that his ministry and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) will continue to protect the area.
The new, ultra-modern museum is part of deliberate measures taken and aimed at promoting the acclaimed archaeological sites, which are among the major tourists’ attractions in the world.
The facility has been constructed close to the old museum, which is too small to accommodate hundreds of visitors who flock to the site during the peak season of tourism.
Olduvai is another iconic site in the human origin studies, being where the 1.7 million year old skull of Australopithecus boisei, the ‘modern man’ was found in 1959.
Both sites were discovered by the Leakey family – Dr. Mary and Louis Leakey, transforming the remote landscapes west of the Ngorongoro highlands into world’s famous areas of early man evolution studies and tourism. The two sites and other areas deemed to be of archaeological importance within Ngorongoro were placed under the NCAA a few years ago from the Antiquities Department for effective management and tourism promotion.
