Source of Zombie Artefacts Identified

Egyptian conservator Hassan Soliman, who works for the Supreme Council of Antiquities in
the Saqqara archaeological area, works to restore the fragile limestone
n the small funerary chapel of Yuyu. — Expédition Leyde-Turin

The source of some zombie-artefacts in the Musée de Picardie (sic), in Amiens has been identified as a result of fieldwork by an Italian-Dutch expedition in the necropolis of Saqqara, in Egypt (Mikaël Libert, 'Archéologie : Quand des fouilles en Egypte permettent de résoudre un mystère à Amiens' 20 minutes 14/04/23 ). The team has discovered a tomb and several funeral chapels dating from the time of Ramses II.The Leyden-Turin expedition, led by doctors Lara Weiss and Christian Greco identified one of the chapels as belonging to the family of a man named Youyou. It turns out that it was the source of looted doorposts One of these chapels was the one from which doorposts had been looted in the 19th century and which had ended up in the Picardy museum, which did not know their origin: “Since 1927, the museum has kept doorposts decorated with hieroglyphs whose provenance we did not know”, explains Agathe Jagerschmidt-Séguin, head of archaeological collections at the Picardy museum, in Amiens. "The only information given by the reading of these hieroglyphs was the name of the person, Youyou, and his profession, manufacturer of leaf gold", she continues.

It was through a legacy from the painter and collector Albert Maignan, at the very beginning of the 20th century, that the uprights of the door of the chapel of Youyou became part of the collections of the Musée de Picardie. “Albert Maignan had bought these pieces, and many others, from the Vendée Egyptologist Emile Amelineau who needed money. But what we still do not know is how he came into possession of the uprights of the Youyou funeral chapel, ”acknowledges Agathe Jagerschmidt-Séguin. The mystery of Youyou has not yet revealed all its secrets.

See also:

Nevine El-Aref , 'Tomb of steward of Amun Temple, smaller chapels unearthed in Saqqara Necropolis' Al-Ahram Wednesday 12 Apr 2023.

Nada El Sawy, 'Ancient tombs and chapels unearthed in Egypt’s Saqqara: A Dutch-Italian archaeological mission discovered the underground complex of Panehsy, a dignitary during the reign of Ramses II', N-Mena Apr 12, 2023

Jason Moore, 'When excavations in Egypt help solve a mystery in Amiens' UK News April 14, 2023 (compare with the French text).

Depletion of the British Historical Environment

Changes in the abundance of farmland birds between 1970 and 2021 in the UK (source, British Trust for Ornithology):

Richard Broughton 🇺🇦 @woodlandbirder · 12 g. New Woodland Bird Indicator shows worst ever result. Woodland specialists like Marsh Tit, Willow Tit, Spotted Flycatcher & Wood Warbler are nosediving. Interestingly, in past 20 yr specialists tended to dip if generalists went up, but now both declining. https://bto.org/our-science/publications/developing-bird-indicators

The historical environment is under similar pressure. With, now, 40000 metal detectorists currently thought to be active, the number of diagnostic metal artefacts remaining in accessible parts of the archaeological record probably looks like the lower two curves too. Birds have organizations like the British Trust for Ornithology and the archaeological record has... uh... ? Who is doing this public outreach, responsibly alerting the British public to the scale of the problem?

Detecting Finds Rates [Updated]

A bloke called Mark who "searches for medieval and Roman coins and artifacts with the metal detector in the northern part of the Netherlands" writes:

Medieval Digger @medieval_digger 19 g.
I had a two hour search today, ended up with 12 coins. One of them was silver! 😎👍🍀 #metaldetecting https://pic.twitter.com/pX1M2fHkXphttps://pic.twitter.com/pX1M2fHkXp

So, a counter based on the estimate that the average number of recordable finds an active detector user will find in the UK in a whole year is 30.5 is not at all extravagant? Who'd 'a thought eh?   

Update 13.04.2023

Medieval Digger @medieval_digger 26 min
30.5? More, way more! I report everything that needs to be reported. I think 60-100 each year.

He'll be getting hate mail from UK detectorists if they see that... If there are 40000 in England and Wales and on average 80000 non-Treasure items responsibly reported to the PAS, how does that compare then? Two-each, what does that say about "British metal detectorists"? Certainly not the oft-automatically-mantric-repeated "the majority are responsible" [when reporting to PAS is a benchmark of that "responsible" behaviour]. In reality (denied by their supporters in archaeology, museums, law enfrcement and silly newspapers), whatever the situation in The EU (here Netherlands), in Britain, the majority of stuff just disappears into artefact hunters' pockets or onto eBay.

Another Leominster Hoard

 Aaaarr...

Record ID: IARCH-FDB11B
Object type: HOARD
Broad period: IRON AGE
County: County of Herefordshire
Workflow stage: Published Find published
A small scattered hoard of six or eight coins, said to have been found in the area of Leominster and Bromyard, in north-east Herefordshire, in or before May 2008 (NC 170 (2010), 408 no. 4; BMHF 2009 T392). The finder is uncooperative and only two of the coins have so far been recorded.

Treasure numbers associated with this hoard: 2009 T392
Subsequent actions
Current location of find: Unknown

Discovery dates
Date(s) of discovery: Saturday 31st May 2008 - Saturday 31st May 2008

Personal details
Recorded by: Dr Eleanor Ghey

Other reference numbers
Legacy hoard number: 2801
Treasure case number: 2009T392
[..] To be known as: Northeast Herefordshire Archaeological context
No archaeological context available.

Created on: Tuesday 13th January 2015 Spatial data recorded. This findspot is known as 'Northeast Herefordshire', grid reference and parish protected.

"Not in it for the money, though".

Dispersal of the Leominster Hoard Coins

The Viking period Leominster hoard of coins and jewellery dating to the late ninth century found at Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire in June 2015 by metal detectorists George Powell and Layton Davies while illegally detecting on land owned by Lord Cawley. The finders did not report it and instead sold it to dealers, except a few individual pieces which were reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Some of the items frm the hoard went to antiquities dealers in Cardiff and London before the couple were caught and convicted.

The hoard originally contained an estimated 300 coins, of which 31 have been recovered along with a silver ingot, an heirloom rock-crystal pendant mounted in gold wire, a gold bracelet, and a gold finger ring. Much of the hoard is still missing and is presumed hidden or sold. One collector bought 16 of the coins (this is only mentioned in passing with no details in the NYT article, mirrored at Seattle Times - has something been hushed up here, and why?). The thirty coins which had been recovered were valued at a proceeds of crime hearing at Worcester Crown Court at £501,000. Five of them are examples of the exceptionally rare Two Emperors penny, valued at up to £50,000 apiece The missing 270 coins were also estimated to have a total nominal value of £2.4m. Five of the recovered coins had been hidden in the handle of a magnifying glass by Paul Wells who was, as he later testified, one of the men approached in summer 2015 by metal detectorists Powell and Davies to help release the coins to the market without attracting attention.

In an October 2022 article on a subsequent proceeds of crime hearing after the initial sentencing, we read that:

Powell claimed to have found only 51 coins, and sold the unrecovered 20 for just £10,000 according to the Mirror. He admitted to gambling it all away after telling the court he ‘had a bit of a naughty habit’. Powell, from Newport, South Wales, said he sold 20 coins to crooked antiques dealer Simon Wicks at a service station on the M4 and kept the remaining 31 to himself [...]. Powell, who was jailed for six and a half years, said in the new hearing: ‘We are metal detectorists, you want to become rich to get the payout, it’s a treasure hunting hobby.’

There now seems to be a consensus that the Operation Fantail material that is now being discussed in the court can be related to this case. Detector users Roger Pilling, 74, of Rossendale, Lancashire, and Craig Best, 46, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham, are facing a jury trial at Durham crown court, they deny a joint charge of conspiring to convert criminal property, namely the Anglo-Saxon coins, for money. They also deny separate charges of possessing criminal property. They had acquired these coins from "somewhere" before 2018. The Crown does not allege that either of the defendants, who were both interested in metal detecting, made the find themselves. In 2018, Best and Pilling contacted a prominent US collector from Michigan. When he asked Best where they came from, in an email Best replied, 'near Worcester'. This collector declined to buy these items, but Mr Best was arrested at a Durham hotel in May 2019 (and Mr Pilling was then arrested at home) in an attempt to sell them to another collector (being unaware that this was an undercover police operation to entrap them).

Prosecutor Matthew Donkin told the jury [...] the coins were believed to be part of the Herefordshire Hoard [...] Mr Best took three coins to a meeting at the Royal County Hotel with undercover officers he thought were part of a team brokering a deal with a US-based buyer, the jury heard. The trio of coins included one of the exceptionally two-emperor style Alfred and Ceolwulf examples - which itself was worth £70,000. Uniformed officers then arrested Mr Best and a subsequent raid of Mr Pilling's home recovered a further 41 coins, Mr Donkin said. Jurors heard an image from Mr Pilling's home showed 46 coins in total, meaning two remained missing.

If these items were from the Leominster hoard, that's forty-one coins down, another 226+ still to be recovered. The person buying the coins from Pilling and Best, whether from this find or any other, should come forward.

Two Men Accused of Trying to Sell Anglo-Saxon Coins, but Nabbed by Undercover Police

Operation "Fantail" grinds slowly on. Two men (Roger Pilling, 74, of Rossendale, Lancashire and Craig Best, 46, of Bishop Auckland, County Durham), are currently on trial at Durham crown court accused of trying to sell rare coins from a Viking period hoard worth over a quarter of a million pounds. They have denied a joint charge of conspiring to convert criminal property, namely the Anglo-Saxon coins, for money. They also deny separate charges of possessing criminal property (Mark Brown, 'Two men accused of trying to sell rare Anglo-Saxon coins to undercover police' Guardian 11 Apr 2023 )

"Two amateur history enthusiasts (sic) have been accused of trying to sell ancient coins from a Viking hoard to representatives of a mystery American buyer who were in fact undercover police officers.[...] Matthew Donkin, opening the case for the prosecution, said the two men had known that the culturally important coins from the reign of Alfred the Great came from a Viking hoard. The court was told the value of one particularly rare coin had been estimated at £70,000 while the combined value of the coins, 44 in total, was about £766,000.[...] Donkin said the prosecution did not allege that the two men were the original finders of the coins. “But someone discovered them,” he said. “They are extremely rare, ancient coins and they have been dug up or unearthed by someone who chose not to declare them.” The rightful owner of the coins, he said, was the crown.

[on behalf of all of us]. This is the next stage in the court case resulting from Operation Fantail and a postulated "Durham Hoard" of Anglo-saxon coins. The case has been covered by this blog, primarily because of the lack of transparency on what had been going on:

'UK Knowledge Thieves Lose their Coin Haul', PACHI Thursday, 30 May 2019

"Operation Fantail" and The Eye/Leominster Hoard', PACHI Friday, 4 October 2019 

'Friday Retrospect: Durham Area Coelwulf Hoard, One Hoard, Two Hoards, Three?' PACHI Friday, 17 April 2020

' And Maybe they'll Manage to Finish Operation Fantail in 2021?' PACHI Sunday, 3 January 2021

'Friday Retrospect: Two Years to Prosecute a Case? What Went Wrong?' PACHI Friday, 2 April 2021

' "Operation Fantail", What Took you so Long? Charges in Durham Ceolwulf II Coins Case' PACHI Monday, 23 August 2021

' Two Men in Court in Viking Hoard Case' PACHI Wednesday, 8 September 2021.

In the recent part of court proceedings, it turns out that the conspiracy to sell the coins began in 2018, when Best had contacted a US collector (radiology professor at the University of Michigan, Ronald Bude). Bude suspected that the coins were fake. When that was raised, and then he decided not to buy them, he received an email from Best that contained an important statement: 

"They are a hoard as you know they are this can cause me problems all you had to do was say you didn’t want them and that was the end of it.” The court heard Best had also told Bude the coins were so good that he would need to fly over for them. In an email he had said: “These coins are big money I will send you a sim card with them all on if you want. I am looking at £2-250k for all of these that’s how good they are.” 

The coins were taken by Best to "an expert at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge" who pronounced them genuine and possibly as a result of this consultation, "news of the discovery had then spread through the community of coins professionals" [and archaeologists?]. Accounts are unclear, and contain nothing specific, about collector Bude's role in alerting authorities in the UK. 

One reason for the media interest in these coins are the ambitions of coin-fondlers to be seen, not as the barely-relevant nerds that some seem to be, but as representatives of an "exciting" discipline that can "rewrite the history books" . In this case what was exciting them was the presence among the coins  on sale dating from AD874 to AD879 was a “King Alfred two-emperors type silver penny” issued in Wessex and Mercia and representing Alfred, the king of Wessex, and Coelwulf II, the king of Mercia and had been (Coins like this: 'Ashmolean from Home: The 'Two Emperors' Coins'). Prior to 2015, only two coins of that type had been discovered. Then along came the Watlington Hoard found and correctly reported by metal detectorist James Mather in 2015, and the illegally-dispersed Eye (Leominster) hoard found by metal detectorists George Powell and Layton Davies also in 2015.  

The two men were arrested after an undercover police operation, the court heard. They had thought that a man, “Hugh”, was a broker and “Max” was a coin expert when they had in fact been police. The prosecution alleged Best took three coins to a meeting in a Durham hotel bar. [...] Donkin told the court Pilling and Best would claim that they did not know the coins were treasure.

After Best's arrest, correspondence fund in his phone led them to Pilling and when his house was searched, police found some 40 Anglo-Saxon coins  (and, it seems from some accounts, an ingot fragment) and he was arrested and charged too.  No information is given in accounts of the court case on where Pilling says he got the coins from. 

\

Thessalonika Bust Raises Questions

 

       A group of Greek and Roman coins on display       
   

A 61-year old man was arrested in the northern port city of Thessaloniki in Greece over the weekend is due to appear in front of a prosecutor (Man arrested over antiquities smuggling in Thessaloniki ekathimerini Newsroom 08.04.2023):

over the theft of antiquities including a number of ancient coins and two ceramic vases that fall under the protective provisions of the legislation on the protection of antiquities. The suspect was identified in an area of Halkidiki after he had previously attempted to send via a transport company in Thessaloniki a parcel to a recipient in Germany, which contained 180 ancient coins, carefully hidden in a container with olive oil. In police searches carried out at his residences in Halkidiki and Thessaloniki, 16 additional coins, a bronze pendant and two ceramic burial vases were found and seized. [...]

Both vases fakes, how many of the coins? Are the nes across the right back row Athenian Athena tets (like for example from the so-called 'Parliament' hoard found in Turkey)? Who is he alleged to have stolen them from, can any of them be proven to have been found outside Greece? And how many can be proven to have been found in Greece? How many were acquired on the open market outside Greece before being imported? All very odd, many questions, but feelgood articles like this are never followed up by any details of the further development of the case (which I suspect in many cases never happens, because the evidence of a crime is missing/poorly gathered). And journalists don't know enough to ask the right questions.