A single line in an 1865 museum ledger.

A registration number from the wrong century.

A photograph altered to hide everything but a single carving.

This episode dives into the forensic world of provenance research as Amber traces the journey of a tauihu that disappeared inside the museum’s collection. With help from the next generation of museum researchers, and a lot of patient detective work, she uncovers how this taonga — the first ever recorded in the Colonial Museum — slipped into silence, and how it finally found its way back into the light.

Glossary

Atua - ancestor with continuing influence, god, supernatural being, deity

Huaki - washboard of a war canoe

Kōrero - speech, narrative, story, news account, discussion, conversation.

Manaia - stylised figure used in carving ...