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Agence France-Presse

The mummified corpse of Rascar Capac thrilled and terrified generations of young fans of the Tintin comic book story The Seven Crystal Balls.
Now, Hergé’s fictional Inca has sparked a row between rival Belgian tourist attractions, each of which displays a mummy they say inspired Tintin’s creator.
The very serious Art and History Museum is in Brussels’ Jubilee Park, near where Hergé used to live, and he was known to frequent its collections.
The museum’s Andean mummy, squatting upright with knees bent, appears similar to the haunting effigy in the author’s illustrated tale of the reporter Tintin’s adventure.


Curators thought they had established the link beyond doubt 10 years ago, but the Pairi Daiza safari park in southern Belgium is touting a rival mummy.
Last week, the popular zoo began marketing an exhibit of the “authentic mummy nicknamed Rascar Capac”. The royal museum is not taking this well, and has all but accused the zoo park of false advertising.
“We don’t attract visitors by promising them pandas,” sniffed museum director general Alexandra de Poorter.
The zoo has expressed regret over an “argument started by the royal museums” but admits that “no one can say for sure which mummy inspired Hergé”.
Museum believed 2,500 year-old coffin was empty. They were wrong
If there is confusion, it dates back until at least 1979, when the 2,000-year-old preserved corpse now on display at the zoo appeared in Brussels at an exhibit titled “Tintin’s museum of the imagination”.
The collection was assembled to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1929 release of the boy reporter’s first book-length adventure, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets.
Author and illustrator Georges Remi – better known under his pen name Hergé – attended the show, adding some credibility to the mummy’s significance. But this, according to the Art and History Museum’s curator of Latin American relics, Serge Lemaitre, was a mistake.
The mummy in question had been bought by a Belgian collector in the 1960s, long after Hergé published the Seven Crystal Balls book in 1948.

“And in the first frames serialised in 1941 in the newspaper Le Soir, Rascar Capac was hairless and had very bent knees, just like our mummy,” Lemaitre says.
Hergé lived near the Jubilee Park – still a popular spot in Brussels’ European quarter – and knew the museum and its curator Jean Capart well. Capart even seems to have been fictionalised as Professeur Bergamotte – or Professor Hercules Tarragon in the English-language version of The Seven Crystal Balls.
Not only that, but items drawn from other pieces in the museum’s ethnographic collections have appeared in the Tintin tales, notably a Peruvian figurine that inspired its eponymous twin in The Broken Ear.
The museum is thus confident in its claim, but – as is often the case in a Tintin mystery – the plot may have a further twist, according to independent expert Philippe Goddin.
From Tintin's Hergé to Moebius, comic art up for grabs in Hong Kong auction
“We should stop arguing. Hergé looked at lots of Inca mummies, but his first sketches of Rascar Capac are essentially based on a drawing in the Larousse dictionary,” he said.
This is an explanation that will not suit anyone in Belgium, where tourist attractions have seized upon any Tintin link to exploit as a key draw.
The drawing in the Larousse was based on a mummy brought back from Peru by the 19th-century French explorer Charles Wiener and is today in the Quai Branly Museum … in Paris.



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Tintin and the duelling mummies: rival Belgian attractions both claim to have inspired comic’s creator

A visitor looks at an Inca mummy at the Pairi Daiza safari park in Brugelette, Belgium, which the zoo claims inspired cartoonist Hergé for his character Rascar Capac. Photo: AFP

Serge Lemaitre, archaeologist and curator of the Americas collections at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels poses on July 13, 2020 during a interview about the Inca mummy that allegedly inspired Herge for his character Rascar Capac, hero of the Tintin album "The Seven Crystal Balls". (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION -- NO ARCHIVE --

Dutch court rejects Chinese villagers claim to have their Buddha mummy returned

A Dutch court threw out a suit filed by a group of Chinese villagers calling for the return of a Buddha statue they say was stolen from their local temple. Photo: AP

Tintin creator was moved to tears by his comic books’ global appeal, ‘Tintinologist’ recalls as Hong Kong show of artist’s work opens

“Tintinologist” Michael Farr at the exhibition The World of Tintin in Taikoo Place, Hong Kong. Photo: David Wong

Belgium, Zaventem: A picture taken 18 March 1981, shows Belgian comic strip designer Herge (Georges Remi), creator of the comic strip character Tintin/Kuifje. Tintin will celebrate 10 January 2004 his 75th anniversary. Herge died on 03 March 1983, aged 75.

Michael Farr "tintinologist", poses for a portrait, ArtisTree, Taikoo Place [FEATURES] SCMP /David Wong

"Tintin au Tibet", an original album of the Adventures of Tintin by Belgium cartoonist Herge. [FEATURES] SCMP /David Wong

Tintin

How Tintin led a Belgian anthropologist to Java, where he found his calling

Patrick Vanhoebrouck. Picture: Jonathan Wong

This handout picture shows Clifford Geertz. Photo : Handout [POSTMAGAZINE MY LIFE 15OCT17]

This handout picture shows the cover of the Religion of Java by Clifford Geertz. Photo : Handout [POSTMAGAZINE MY LIFE 15OCT17]

B5P6DN Mount Merapi view in front of a paddy field in Magelang the nearest town to Borobudur. Image shot 03/2008. Exact date unknown. Photo : Alamy [POSTMAGAZINE MY LIFE 15OCT17]

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Dispute centres on which preserved figure Hergé’s villain Rascar Capac, from The Seven Crystal Balls, is based on
Museum in Brussels has claimed link for years, but safari park in southern Belgium has begun touting rival mummy



Belgian museum and safari park both claim artist Hergé based villain Rascar Capac, from The Seven Crystal Balls, on preserved figure in their collection.


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