UK and Europe Purchasing Power Index

"The annual purchasing power index compiled by GfK, the largest market research company in Germany, looks at how much people have to spend on food, housing, services, energy costs, private pensions, insurance, holidays, mobility and consumer purchases after paying taxes.

Its report for 2024 found that the purchasing power of the average European was €18,768. There were, however, large disparities between countries, as well as between regions within many countries".

To what extent does this map predict the prevalence of antiquities collecting? Certainly I think the clhigher values for the UK, Austria, Germany and Switzerlasne would fit what we might suspect, but Norway for example?

Historic Coins Found by Metal Detectorists Acquired for Record £4.3m

Salma Ouaguira, 'Norman coin hoard becomes England’s most valuable treasure find after being sold for record-breaking sum', Independant 22.10.2024.

A group of metal detectorists uncovered an extraordinary hoard of 2,584 ancient coins in a Somerset field valued at £4.3million. The 11th-century coin trove, known as the Chew Valley Hoard, is now England’s most valuable treasure find, revealing new information about the historical transition following the Norman Conquest. The set includes pennies depicting William the Conqueror and Harold II, and a number of coins of William I issued after his coronation in 1066. Adam Staples, 48, discovered the coins in 2019 with his girlfriend at the time, Lisa Grace, and five friends, but had to wait for years to secure the payout.

So now, the tekkies have got their money and we will sit back and wait for the full report of the hoard (die links and all) to learn all that "new information about the historical transition following the Norman Conquest" (sic) it reveals, even though it was ripped out of ts context by the finders. This will be a monograph worth waiting for - telling about the beginning of the English nation, Eine Hervorragend Nationale Geschichte, as they say. As they were 'training' others, it would've been the perfect opportunity to teach them 'Hey, we have something big and likely important, let's re-bury, call for PAS to come running over the horizon to save the day (excavate and record the find)'. Din't happen, did it. Of course if ONLY there were a Code of Practice or two in England and Wales that say what should happen in such cases, just ... what, what's that, you say??? There is??? eh? But....

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ATHAR Project and the Artifact War’

Readers of past posts on ths blog may know that as a result of my own research and thoughts, I have a moderately sceptical approach to some of the elements of this story, but this is certainly worth getting to know:

ATHAR Project @ATHARProject Oct 24, 2024

SOON: ‘Artifact War’ world premiere and best feature doc nominee at the @austinfilmfest. The film follows the work of Amr Al-Azm, Adnan Almohamad, and Katie A. Paul as they track trafficked Syrian antiquities from war zone looting sites to social media sites.

"An archaeology professor and his students go undercover to stop ISIS from trafficking Syrian antiquities, only to uncover a web of terror, corporate corruption, and the sale of illegal artifacts in the most shocking places".

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Posted on You Tube by Mystery Box Films 24.10.2024.

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Detectorist Hails ‘Lottery’ Payout Five Years After Finding The Chew Valley Hoard

Detectorist hails ‘lottery’ payout five years after finding ancient coins

A metal detectorist who found £4.3 million worth of ancient coins has spoken of his frustration that it took five years to receive a penny. Adam Staples, 48, discovered 2,584 coins depicting William the Conqueror and Harold II in Somerset in 2019 with his girlfriend at the time, Lisa Grace, and five friends. [...] Mr Staples, an auctioneer from Derby, said: “It’s like winning the lottery but then you can’t cash the ticket for five years.[...] Half of the money will go to the landowner, and the rest has been split between Mr Stables, Ms Grace and the friends they were training to use their metal detectors on the weekend trip, meaning they got around £300,000 each.

I can just imagine all those people wishing to get involved with historical/archaeological research to have a tax free lump sum in order to live mortgage free, after reading this . In fact, if you think about it, there is a higher chance of getting rich in the UK by buying a metal detector and going out into a field than by taking part in the National Lottery. But they are "not in it fer th' munny, jus' th' 'istry, M8".

Series 2 of Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse.

Catherine Bennett, 'Any ice-age telepaths out there? Please explain why Netflix is revisiting Ancient Apocalypse', Guardian Sun 29 Sep 2024

Admittedly the rise of anti-science discourse has helped normalise, if not his theories, Hancock’s bizarre claims to special – even suppressed? – insights. Contributing to this trend, the programme makers show him as a quest-driven, misunderstood seer; the rejection of his speculation, once thought fairly appropriate, is presented as an attraction. No opportunity was lost in the first series of Ancient Apocalypse to denigrate dissenting archaeologists for disputing the existence of ancient Hancockia. “Perhaps,” he said in programme one, “there’s been a forgotten episode in human history, but perhaps the extremely arrogant and patronising attitude of mainstream academia is stopping us from considering that possibility.”

Elizabethan coins found in Staffordshire farmer's field declared treasure

BBC: "Elizabethan coins found in farmer's field declared treasure" Sep 23

Seventeen coins from the Elizabethan era discovered in a Staffordshire farmer's field have been formally declared treasure by a coroner. Five groats of Mary I of England and two groats, two sixpences, four threepences and four half groats of Elizabeth I of England were found by metal detectorist Sam Egerton and his friends. "It's a really great feeling," said Mr Egerton from Uttoxeter, who made the discovery in January 2023, after taking up the hobby the year before. The coins will be now valued, with the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery interested in acquiring them for its collection.

Why? What are they "evidence" of? What does this find tell us about Elizabethan society, what does the precise findspot tell us about the organization of the Tudor landscape there (or its re-organization)? What other finds did these "friends" make that were not declared and what relationship were they in qwith the other features of teh site's archaeology (pottery scatters, tile scatters, shifting property boundaries)? Was this in fact a commercial artefact huynting artefact grabfest? Will there be a full and detailed Treasure Report illuminating the archaeology of the field it was found in? Or are the British arkies still going off on the object-centred tanget of pseudo-archaeology, ignoring context and archaeology of trashed and exploited SITES (and their place in landscapes)? Why is this non-news treated as "news"?

MAGAdiots and Today's Archaeology Students

 

In a recent public appearance, US presidential candidate Donald Trump claims immigration policies are failing because in a certain Ohio town, he'd heard, immigrant families are kidnapping and killing their white neighbours' cats and dogs to eat them. A whole lot of his supporters are flocking to social media to "prove" that this really is happening all over the US, including this guy, reposting what an anonymous snooping neighbour reports:

BTW, many Bosnians are Muslims. But there is an issue here, apparently in US schools they don't teach people (or MAGA folk simply do not learn what was presented in class) the difference between carnivore and herbivore dentition. Duh.

But this is a more general issue, society is moving away from the countryside. Here just two decade or so ago, many kids even in the cities, would have a grandma that lives on a little homestead in the country with a cow and chickens who they'd visit or stayed with. Today this is less frequent. Many kids grow up in a concrete desert and the meat comes  pink and bloodless in little plastic pack (and if there were so much as a millimetres long fragment of the quill of a feather in the poultry, the customer would be back in the shop with a complaint about contamination). My son-in-law had never been up close to any livestock bigger than a hamster until I took the family megalith-gawping in the UK and  he was aghast to learn he was to walk in the same field with curious ("dangerous" as he saw it) cows. 

Teaching archaeology to students who have very little idea of how crops grow, what ploughing looks like, how livestock behaves, never met a farmer was an unnerving experience for me, a slightly different generation with different experiences, and brought up in the countryside to boot.  How will archaeology teachers cope in the future.

Oh, by the way, the spitroast was a sheep and the Bosnian guy's neighbour owes him a apology.