The Chilean National Museum of Natural History is one of three national museums in Chile, along with the Museum of Fine Arts and the National History Museum. It is located in Quinta Normal Park. Founded on September 14, 1830 by the French naturalist Claudio Gay, the director of the Museum and the Botanical garden was another Frenchman Jean-François Dauxion-Lavaysse.

The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo near Santiago, Chile in 1954. It was discovered by Guillermo Chacón Carrasco, Jaime Ríos Abarca, and Luis Gerardo Ríos Barrueto. The mummy was brought to the attention of Grete Mostny at the Chilean National Museum of Natural History; she later proved instrumental in the museum's acquisition of the specimen. The Plomo Mummy was the first notable frozen mummy discovery of high-altitude Capacocha human sacrifice by the Incas, a practice called qhapaq hucha.