Lucy fossil to visit Houston museum

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, April 15 (UPI) -- The 3.2 million-year-old fossil of Lucy will leave Ethiopia for the first time for display at the Houston Museum of Science in Texas in 2006.

Ethiopia's minister of tourism Abdullahi Suker, said Wednesday the purpose of sending Lucy abroad was "to reveal to American viewers our country's unmatched historical importance as the cradle of mankind and land of significant archaeological discovery."

Lucy, once the most complete pre-human remains known to science, is normally kept in a vault at the Ethiopian National Museum, but a replica is kept on public display.

Suker said the fossil, not the replica, would be sent to Houston, along with other Ethiopian treasures including the crowns and scepters of ancient rulers.

Lucy -- named for the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' -- was discovered in 1974 and was a landmark fossil in establishing the origins of humankind in Africa.