A fragile taonga

Fiona McNish with Whanganui Regional Museum’s moa egg. Photo / Paul Brooks

There are 36 known whole moa eggs in the world today, and the one held by the Whanganui Regional Museum (WRM) is one of the world’s best eight.

It’s encased in a glassed alcove, lit, with the eggs of a domestic hen, an ostrich and a kiwi displayed below it for size comparison.

Consider what it is, and it is magnificent.

Fiona McNish, museum administration manager, chose the egg as her WRM Showcase piece.

“This is one of our treasures,” she says. She points out the beautiful marbled effect on the shell. “It’s very rare to have one complete, because they get smashed when the baby hatches, but this has been trapped in alluvial soil and was covered.”

This particular egg is known as the Clutterbuck Egg and was found by a workman during road works at Tokomaru East Road in Brunswick, just north of Whanganui. The museum bought it from local farmer AE Clutterbuck in 1931 for £2, roughly equivalent to $250 today.

The egg was probably laid by the common small moa in the area, Anomalopteryx didiformis. Judging by the alluvial gravels in which the egg was found buried, it may be several thousand years old.

“This one is of particular note because of its near-completion,” says Fiona. The egg had sustained minor damage which was repaired by Henry Drew, son of jeweller and museum founder, Samuel Drew.

“I’m always fascinated by moa. New Zealanders are bird people: we don’t have the big mammals here, so it’s always about the birds.

“Our dinosaurs were these massive birds laying these fragile little eggs.” Fiona adds that the egg is also rare and one of the museum’s financial treasures.

She says the shell is surprisingly thin for such a large egg, and the marbled texture reminds her of the columns in the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

There is an element of wonder and speculation that can only add to the known story: how did the egg end up preserved in alluvial soil? Did it roll out of the nest? Was the entire nest buried, and this was the only egg to survive? Or was it the only egg in the nest?

The moa egg in its large egg cup. Photo / Paul Brooks

The part of the museum where the egg is displayed is a moa boneyard, with intact skeletons and piles of oversized bones adding to the sombre, almost eerie ambience of that part of the first floor. Included in the display are books, book covers, a record (with a moa song — No Moa) and a Superman comic which features an aggressive moa - no match for the Man of Steel!

Fiona, a history and anthropology major, started her job at the Whanganui Regional Museum last year, and she says she loves it.

Originally from Waverley, not far from Whanganui, she counts herself as one of the returnees, as she came back to the district recently.