[MSN] Lucy Makes Curator Target of Criticism. Paleoanthropologists have been outraged by the decision to take Lucy out of Ethiopia, saying the fragile skeleton may be damaged irreparably during the journey to a very profitable show for the museum.

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Lucy Makes Curator Target of Criticism
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

By MONICA RHOR, Associated Press Writer
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 HOUSTON - 

Dirk Van Tuerenhout last made headlines for his role in returning a
priceless artifact to its homeland. This time, he's making headlines for
doing just the opposite.

As the curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Van
Tuerenhout is the man behind an unprecedented exhibit featuring one of the
world's most famous set of bones _ a 3.2 million-year-old pre-human fossil
named Lucy.

The show, which opens Friday, marks the first time Lucy has been displayed
in public outside her native Ethiopia _ a trip that has unleashed an
international furor among scientists.

Many of the world's top paleoanthropologists have been outraged by Van
Tuerenhout's decision to take Lucy out of Ethiopia, saying the fragile
skeleton may be damaged irreparably during the journey to what is expected
to be a very profitable show for the museum. About 3,500 advance tickets had
been sold as of Tuesday.

Famed fossil hunter Richard Leakey suggested the museum was prostituting
Lucy, and others questioned Van Tuerenhout's credentials.

Never heard of him, said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian
Institution's Human Origins program. "He's not a practicing
paleoanthropologist. He's not doing original research," Potts said.

Yet the Belgian-born Van Tuerenhout seems unruffled by the criticism.
Instead, he responds with diplomatic deflection and deadpan humor. He jokes
about Lucy's arrival in Houston earlier this month, saying she had no
complaints about the airplane food. He smiles and pauses for effect when
describing the breadth of the Lucy exhibit. "It covers 6 million years of
history ... so there may be a few gaps."

And he delicately sidestepped Leakey's comments.

"That underscores the great emotion that this tour is creating, and emotion
is always good," he said. "Of course, I would never personally put it in
those terms."

The 48-year-old Van Tuerenhout sees the Lucy exhibit as an opportunity for
education.

"Lucy is very important to mankind, and what better way to share her with
mankind than by putting her on exhibit," he said.

For Van Tuerenhout, the Lucy exhibit is the pinnacle of a career that began
in childhood with a fascination for ancient history.

He graduated from Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with a master's
in anthropology, then earned his Ph.D. at Tulane University in New Orleans,
where he specialized in pre-Columbian cultures. After doing fieldwork in
Guatemala and teaching for a year at Shippensburg University in
Pennsylvania, Van Tuerenhout joined the Houston museum in 1999.

Under his direction, the museum has drawn crowds by exhibiting treasures
from the Vatican, artifacts from the Vikings, and a 2004-2005 show that
brought the Dead Sea Scrolls to Houston.

But Potts and other curators say the Houston museum has failed to earn a
reputation among the scientific community.

Rather than hurt the museum's reputation, Van Tuerenhout said the
controversy has drawn attention to the facility, which attracts about 2
million visitors a year.

"It has helped in getting our name in media all over world," he noted. "Lucy
is the main reason we are talking about the exhibit."

In 2005, Van Tuerenhout helped the Peruvian government retrieve a
gold-covered 16th-century altar piece that had been stolen from a
colonial-era church. After U.S. authorities recovered the intricately carved
artifact at a New Mexico art gallery, Van Tuernhout helped arrange its
return to Peru.

"I saw what I, as an archaeologist, deplore, which is looting. Aside from
the fact that it was breaking the law, it was just not right," said Van
Tuerenhout, recalling the moment he saw the pilfered piece. "These types of
things belong where they came from. They have to go back."

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