The case of the missing egg

Among museum mysteries are where the lost things go, writes Chloe Searle.

What got me interested in museums to start with were the objects that museums care for.

In my 12 years at the Waitaki Museum and Archive the collections have provided me endless inspiration, excitement and occasionally some intrigue.

A major project this year has been installing new shelving in our collection store. It is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to re-organise the store and ensure we are providing the best care we can for the items entrusted to our museum.

Long before the building work started our staff and volunteers began slowly readying the collection for this task. Rehousing objects, inventorying shelf locations, trying to reconcile different pieces of collection information from old letters, index books and newspaper articles. One thing that came from all this work was a list of missing objects to keep our eyes peeled for. Despite wanting a top 10, I ended up with a list of nine significant missing objects. It included objects stolen in a break-in the 1980s, objects loaned and not returned, along with some things that just seem to have vanished.

The missing object my thoughts often return to (spoiler, sadly it has not turned up yet) is a moa egg. Brian Gill, former curator at Auckland Museum, has written extensively on moa eggs. Just 36 whole eggs are recorded from collections around the world, although that list does not include the egg that was once at the North Otago Pioneer Gallery.

The missing egg appears in our records as being donated by Mr Williams, of Queens Crescent, in 1961. We do not have any photographs of the egg. There is some correspondence with Otago Museum seeking advice on displaying the egg and there is newspaper coverage of the donation. Some locals have told me they remember seeing it on display.

But was it even a moa egg at all? The easiest solution to this mystery is to decide it was a case of mistaken identity. Perhaps a mislabelled ostrich egg? An easy answer but an unsatisfying one. I feel that Neville Turner, North Otago Pioneer Gallery custodian, was knowledgeable enough to determine if this were a genuine moa egg and he would have been cautious to claim it as such unless he was certain. The dimensions and other details we have all fit with it being a moa egg.

So where did it go?

In 1974 the old Pioneer Gallery was demolished to make way for the new Oamaru Public Library and in 1977 the North Otago Museum opened next door in the former library building.

The egg did not feature in the new displays or in the updated collection inventories. There is no mention of it being loaned, or lost, or damaged. It just vanishes from the records and seemingly from the collection.

One of our missing items has been recovered, just eight to go.

I remain hopeful the Pioneer Gallery moa egg is out there somewhere and that it one day makes its way back to Waitaki Museum.

Chloe Searle is Waitaki Museum & Archives and Forrester Gallery director.