Every two years, the Registrar’s Office at the Carlos carries out a full inventory of all objects located at the main building and at our offsite storage facility. We walk through every gallery and storage area, put eyes on each object, and check it off a list. Inventory helps us make sure everything is where it is supposed to be and allows us to spot the condition of the objects in our care. While inventory is a long and occasionally tedious process, sometimes you do get a surprise.
The initial inventory of the current cycle was carried out in 1990. As it was the first systematic inventory of our entire collection, museum staff “found” a number of objects they were not expecting – 602 to be exact. We tag these objects in the database as “Found in Inventory”. My favorite object found during Inventory 1 is a little salt crystal attached to a card that reads: Found near the shores of the Dead Sea and supposed to be a part of Lot’s Wife who was changed to salt when she looked back at Sodom. Lot’s Wife, who lives at our offsite storage facility, was given the object number I.001.230 – “I” indicating it was found in inventory; “.001” for Inventory 1; and “.230” meaning it was the 230th object found during Inventory 1.
We never found the same volume of objects in subsequent inventories, but surprises still pop up from time to time. I.007.001, the only object found in Inventory 7 in 1998, is a cute little Corinthian aryballos that has been in our galleries since 2013. Two small bone pins (I.013.001 and I.013.002) decorated with elephants were found in 2014 during Inventory 13.
Every institution is going to have objects that have been “found” within their collections as well as objects that have gone missing. It can be embarrassing to talk about it publicly, but we must remember that museum employees are people just like everyone else. Mistakes are inevitable with the passage of time, changes in staff, and the movement of objects.
