National Museum Wales has confirmed that almost 2,000 artefacts including a sword, axe and javelin from the Bronze Age are missing from its collections. It was also revealed a number of other items have gone missing over the years including Roman ceramic tiles, a bracelet, finger ring, and bow brooch. This comes after a freedom of information request from BBC Wales, which revealed a total of 1,921 pieces were unaccounted for.
Despite the high number of missing items, Museum Wales assured the public no items of high financial value have been identified as lost or missing. However, the museum has not been able to provide pictures of the missing items. Records indicate that most of the missing items have been misplaced or wrongly documented and most may eventually be found.
Museum Wales consists of seven national museums, with collections from around the world, housing 5.3 million items, including paintings, fine art and a library of archives. All the missing items have been catalogued in the Museum’s digital database from paper records, a 30-year process that is expected to take another 20 years to complete.
Museum Wales states that it operates to professional standards, which meet the requirements of the UK’s accredited Museum Accreditation Scheme. The Welsh Government is providing Museum Wales with £27.2m of revenue funding for operational costs and £5m of capital funding for longer-term investments in the financial year 2023-24. Entry to the museums remains free.
Although a total of 16 items were reported stolen from the Slate Museum in Llanberis, Gwynedd or St Fagans in Cardiff since 2017, none of them are of high financial value. A Welsh Government spokesperson stated that the care and management of its collections was a matter for Museum Wales, who works to professional standards in meeting the public requirements of the Museum Accreditation Scheme
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