Reposted from BBC

There are tens of millions of items in the collections of Scotland's galleries and museums, but the whereabouts of thousands of them is unknown.

BBC Scotland News asked some of the country's most popular galleries and museums for records of items lost, stolen and missing.

The responses show that a wide range of objects, from ancient relics to expensive artwork, are unaccounted for.

It comes after 2,000 items went missing from the British Museum in London.

A member of staff has been dismissed, the Met Police have launched an investigation, and the museum has appealed for help from the public to recover the artefacts.

Many of the Scottish institutions contacted by the BBC suggested most of their missing items were the victims of poor record-keeping, rather than any criminal endeavours.

To misplace one life-size figure of a Japanese man in native costume is perhaps careless, but to do it twice is exactly what happened at Glasgow's Museum of Transport stores in 2018.

Glasgow Life, the body which runs the city's museums and galleries, lists both items as "unlocated to date".

Elsewhere in Glasgow, the Hunterian Zoology Museum had a dolphin skull stolen sometime between 2010 and 2021, while the city's "no mean city" reputation perhaps explains why a set of iron knuckle dusters went missing from the People's Palace in 2005.

Meanwhile, South Ayrshire museums reports that a "large bottle marked Poison" is missing from Rozelle House in Ayr.

In Edinburgh, Bute House, the official residence of the first minister, reported that a brass lamp was "missing" in 2016, while in 2020 a Georgian mahogany armchair was marked as "not found".

More than 4,000 items are reported as lost, stolen or missing at the National Library of Scotland, which includes book titles such as Among Thieves, To Catch a Thief, Plunder Squad and A Burglar's Life Story.

Other riskier titles, such as The Irish Kama Sutra and Sexual Anomalies and Perversions are also missing.

The National Museum of Scotland reports that a flying suit, goggles and flight jacket were stolen in November 1986 - a robbery perhaps influenced by the fact the first Top Gun film came out just weeks before.

Possibly the most valuable item currently missing from Scotland's museums and galleries is a £3m sculpture by world-famous artist Auguste Rodin.

Officials at Glasgow Museums said a plaster version of Les Bourgeois de Calais was purchased in 1901 but they are currently unable to locate it.

Among the other famous artworks "unlocated" in Glasgow is part of a painting of Sir Billy Connolly's banjo by artist John Byrne.

The 1974 work features Sir Billy's instrument propped up against a wall with a shadow over it.

It went missing in 2005, but John Byrne recreated the missing section and gifted it to the city in 2017.

Works by Thomas Gainsborough, Carlo Maratti, Sebastien Vrancx and Cornelis Vroom are all "unlocated" from Glasgow's collections.

In Aberdeen, a total of 1,330 artefacts and artworks worth almost £200,000 are missing from the council collection, including old coins, books, clothing, photographs and drawings.

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