Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues

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Heritage Action is a grassroots organization seeking a better deal for Britain's archaeological mouments and landscapes, a group of volunteers passionately interested in the historic heritage and trying to take action against those, especially goverment bodies and institutions, that seem to be neglecting the duty to look after them. One of the topics of their recent concern is government policy towards artefact hunting and collecting, damaging archaeological sites in Britain on a worrying scale with very little being done by the authorities to prevent it. In his comments to my post ("making it sustainable ...") on this blog Roger Bland, Head of the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme asks:

Equally, how can anyone put any credence into Heritage Action's Artefact Erosion Counter when the basis on which it is calculated is not stated? 316,000 finds a year? How impressive to be so certain on so little evidence. For you simply to say that you believe it to be accurate is hardly adequate.

[The Erosion Counter under discussion can be found here at the moment it stands at some3,478,000 'recordable' objects which have been collectively removed from the archaeological record since the start of the Portable Antiquities Scheme].

Well, I would like to hear Roger Bland's own best estimate on the number of 'recordable' artefacts that are being taken by artefact hunters (let us say just those using metal detectors) in England and Wales year by year and on what basis he arrives at his estimate. Is it possible to learn that after a decade or more and eight million quid's worth of liaison by the PAS? After not one but three separate 'independent reviews' of the Scheme's operation? It seems a pretty fundamental question to me. Too important to say "we have no idea, but one day we might".

I believe the Heritage Action Erosion counter figures are far more useful as a basis for discussion of current policies than the government's eight million pound "we don't know yet".

As Roger Bland knows only too well (!), I have been concerned about the scale of the erosion of the UK archaeological record due to artefact hunting and collecting for some years. Since no real figures seemed to exist in the context of which to examine the 'propaganda of success' that the pro-collecting lobby was putting out (concerning number of items recorded through the PAS for example), and nobody seemed keen to try and determine this, I took an interest in this problem and have been trying to determine this myself. A few years ago, after constant frustration of attempts to obtain such figures from the PAS and pro-collecting lobby in archaeology, I formed a small informal working group (now no longer active) called EAHAR (Effects of Artefact Hunting on the Archaeological Record) where we discussed this. The erosion counter grew out of these discussions.

I should perhaps admit that to some extent I was involved in the creation of the Heritage Action counter (though it is not by any means my own work or based solely on information I gathered) and I know how much thought and work of a number of dedicated volunteers passionately interested in conserving Britain's historic record actually went into it. I need not add that it did not cost the taxpayer a penny, but addresses questions that bodies that do should have been answering about the common archaeological heritage and how it is being "managed" (which in this case seems a loose use of the term).

A second point that needs to be made with regard Roger Bland's disparaging remarks is that the HA website is one doing “outreach” and not in itself an academic publication. The basis on which the erosion counter is calculated and the underlying definitions are all laid out in the book which Nigel Swift and I have written and will hopefully be out next year. I am sure they will then be well and truly scrutinised. My hope is that they will then be replaced by an even more firm estimate. I should add that in the course of work on the book after Heritage Action had set the Erosion Counter ticking away, we were led to the realisation that there were other factors not initially taken into account which should have led to the rate being set even higher. But as it says on the webpage, it is deliberately a conservative estimate of the erosion caused by the removal of artefacts from the archaeological record by metal detector using artefact hunters.*

I really do not see why Roger Bland scoffs at "316000 objects" a year. It is not a great amount if he himself accepts that there could be up to ten thousand detectorists in England and Wales alone. That’s just 31 objects a year each, a handful of Roman “grots”, a buckle or two, a hammered coin and some other bits. That’s not actually very much at all. There are artefact hunters on PAS who have (they say) recorded a thousand items in the last three years - 300 a year (Pete Twinn the Bristol detectorist who Kate Clark spent a lot of time talking to asserts that is the case with his finds). There are 'highlights' from metal detectorists' collections on UKDFD which show that individual detectorists have many more found in the course of a year. There’s the profoundly disturbing Mike Pegg video referred to on this blog a few months back with his “shedfull” of artefacts. There were the four guys (the video Steve Taylor pulled from You Tube after I drew attention to it here) who went on a metal detecting weekend in Suffolk and despite it being wet and horrible each proudly displayed a haul greater than thirty recordable items from just one weekend. There are many cases of personal artefact collections which contain more than thirty new recordable items added annually, especially if the searcher has found a "productive" site, like a Roman settlement or Early Medieval cemetery.

Of course at the other end of the scale are the dozens of sad individuals that plug away at the hobby and despite going out in all weathers for hours on end manage to find one or two things a year. There are a lot of them in the hobby, many of them probably only go out to meet other people they can talk to in a field at rallies and so on. Then there are many who fall between these extremes. What we need is a much greater amount of precision about artefact hunting and collecting patterns. I believe the Heritage Action counter takes these factors fully into consideration.

As things stand at the moment I believe the Heritage Action Erosion Counter is a relatively accurate reflection of the loss to the British archaeological record due to artefact hunting and collecting.

Supporters of the PAS scoff at the figures, but (as did Roger Bland just now) omit to address the second part of the question I ask about it. Even if the supporters of a "partnership" with artefacts and hunters think these figures are "wrong" (as they must in order to save face), then by how much must these figures be "wrong" to make the situation an acceptable one? Twenty percent, thirty, fifty? This is a question to which I would like to hear the answer.

In 2003 the aims and objectives of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (operating since 1997) were formalized. There were just five of them. The last was

To define the nature and scope of a scheme for recording portable antiquities in the longer term, to access the likely costs and to identify resources to enable it to be put into practice.

Just a few years later, on page 9 of the 2005/6 annual report it was announced bluntly “The final aim […] has been achieved”. This was indeed a surprising statement if one regards just one of the several purposes of the PAS is to record the many items being deliberately and with pre-meditation taken from the archaeological record weekly by several thousand artefact hunters year by year. The PAS has clearly not been achieving full mitigation of the erosion caused by this single cause of the significant long term depletion of the British archaeological record. It also seems to me that it has a very long way to go in doing so. Furthermore it is clear that meeting this need would be a very costly exercise, so the curious may have wondered where the resources to put this in practice were emvisaged. On the announcement of the news that these resources had been identified, we all looked forward to the release of the details.

They never came. Whatever the PAS had decided about these costs and how they were likely to be met was kept out of the public domain.

The PAS however had not achieved their fifth aim. They had not assessed the longer term costs of a scheme for recording the thousands of individual pieces of archaeological evidence removed annually to scattered ephemeral personal portable antiquity collections by British artefact hunters. They never did let on where it was they identified the source of the considerable amounts of money needed to do the job properly – in other words the PAS did they reveal on whom they wished to unload the costs of legitimizing and coping with the erosive hobby of a minority - or why they should foot the bill.

More recently a review was commissioned to look at the same problem. The publication of the results of the review process identified the source of the funding to keep the Scheme operating more or less at the same level. Basically in addition to central funds, it requires the local partners each to give to the financing of the Scheme twice as much money as before. A few limply-phrased words about ”partnership” and so on are intended to convince local authorities of the necessity of doing this (at the expense of other local needs of course).

The point is however that current policies concerning artefact hunting and collecting in England and Wales do not need a PAS that is standing still, one that is merely treading water to create the impression that one day the problem of the erosion of the British archaeological record due to artefact hunting, collecting and commerce can be fully resolved. We need a PAS which is going to reach all those thousands of finds that are annually being removed from the archaeological record by artefact collectors and get reliable archaeologically-usable information from them. That’s going to cost a lot more than adding another few percent on a local authority’s already slim culture budget. The big question though is why? Why should everybody be forking out to support the hobby of an erosive minority?

David Dawson draws attention to a report released online by the Research Information Network which addresses the problem of how museums can better support the needs of researchers including those interested in examining archaeological objects in the reserve collections.There are a number of recommendations which impinge on topics which have been raised by collectors of portable antiquities in their rhetoric extolling the academic advantages of the "in a heap on my table" model over the "locked away in reserve collections in museum basements".

Two of them are of particular interest in this context.
The first is that the report says that all museums and other collections should make the research data in their content management systems available online as soon as possible, without waiting until backlogs are cleared or records improved to levels of perceived 'perfection'.
The other is that museums and other collections should develop and publish (for example on their websites) a 'researchers' charter', including clear policies on the arrangements for visits by researchers and covering other areas such as the support and facilities available for browsing collections, handling objects, sampling and testing, and loans. As an example, Dawson draws attention to the webpage for researchers of the Wiltshire Heritage Museum.
The report also recommends putting information about the collections online. Dawson reports that the above-mentioned museum found this to be relatively straightforward and inexpensive and that jt paid for itself in terms of staff time saved in answering enquiries and has made the collections better known.

Scotland is a huge and culturally advanced country lying to the north of England, it has a population of over 5 100 000. As we all know, under Scottish law all portable antiquities of archaeological, historical or cultural significance are subject to claim by the Crown through the Treasure Trove system and must be reported. It is interesting to look at Appendix 4 ("Finders who reported finds in this reporting year") listed in the latest Scottish Treasure Trove Report. How many people reported archaeological finds as the law demands? A massive 31 people, a total which includes "metal detectorists" and non-"metal detecting" members of the public. The reporting metal detectorists of Scotland are not enough to even fill a bus to Edinburgh.

Now there are some gentle-folk who suggest helpfully that if there was a Scottish PAS they'd become "educated" and encouraged to report.

The idea of extending the "community engagement" and "partnership" of the PAS to the metal detectorists of Scotland is not really a good idea. Outreaching to a group that appear to be guilty of law-breaking on a mass scale by offering them the opportunity to report finds voluntarily would rightly make Britain an international laughing stock.

Photo: Traprain Law treasure

The Portable Antiquities Scheme was set up in 1997 to serve three main purposes.

The first was to ensure that accidental finds made by non-archaeologists, members of the public going about their everyday activities, were reported so that the information they reveal about previously undiscovered sites could be added to the Historic Environment Record (then called “Sites and Monuments Records”). This is what Art. 2iii of the Valetta Convention sees as an essential part of creating a legal system for the protection of the archaeological heritage.
The second as part of this process was to provide mitigation for the erosion of the archaeological record caused by “metal detecting” (the deliberate exploitation of the archaeological record as a source of collectables for entertainment and profit). As such therefore it was intended as a manner of managing the depletion of the record through this activity. Due to the strong opposition of the “metal detecting” lobby, Britain did not feel able to make the reporting of finds mandatory; it assumed persuasion would be enough.
A third and no less important function was to act as a medium for education the public about archaeology and the importance of the archaeological heritage and involving them in its management. The Scheme was set up as “British archaeology’s largest public outreach”, intended to promote archaeological awareness, and instill best practice in addition to its functions recording archaeological objects found by members of the public and passing the information on to the HERs to be used in planning, research and conservation programmes.

The Scheme has operated for over a decade and has been the subject of debate, not least on how to sustainably fund it to a level suitable to the tasks ahead of it. A review was commissioned to look at the ten years’ work and define future directions. The final text by Kate Clark Associates based at Wotton under Edge, Gloucestershire has now appeared.

To characterize this review merely as a disappointment would in my view be an understatement. The author basically has in fact not reviewed the past decade of operation of the Scheme in the various areas in any detail. Neither has she presented various options available and assessed each of them in any detail before reaching her recommendations. These largely coincide with what (as was leaked earlier to quell the mounting tide of criticism of the MLA and central government coming from the portable antiquity collecting lobby) was already being discussed in the MLA. The structure of the document suggests that its author to some extent tailored her arguments to lead to recommendations that this should be the case. I pointed out one of these here, I include what seems to be another clear example below (here).

The Review recommends making changes in the levels of activity and funding of the scheme aiming to facilitate its delivery in the future in the most cost-efficient manner, and render it sustainable. In doing so the author revises the underlying objectives of the scheme. The latter involve such substantial changes that if adopted the ensuing entity fully deserves the name “New PAS” (NuPAS) clearly distinguishing its activities and function from those of the previous decade. The new proposals dilute many of those features that made the old PAS (at least in theory) an ally of archaeological resource conservation.

Normally a policy review of this magnitude and its recommendations would be the subject of comment and discussion in the archaeological world. There is however nothing “normal” in the approach of British archaeologists to the issues surrounding artefact hunting. In fact on the whole the main comments have been coming from artefact hunters and collectors in Britain and beyond which treat its recommendations as a victory for their party. To a great extent they are right and I wonder just how many of my British colleagues have actually read the text carefully and reflected on its significance. I would like today present my thoughts on this review, rather than as one long post, I decided to divide the main arguments into several thematic posts here. I’m going to try to post them in reverse order so they read more logically from the top. They supplement the six earlier ones posted here just after the review appeared ( here, here, here, here, here, and here). I make no apology for discussing the review and the changes it proposes introducing into the ethos behind the PAS at length, given the iconic significance the Scheme has attained for all manner of people involved in portable antiquity collecting and trade, its implications go well beyond those connected with conserving the archaeological resources (record) of England and Wales or even the UK.

vignette symbolises "community engagement"

I would be the last person to claim that the discussion of artefact hunting and collecting in the UK is simple. The issues involved are certainly much more complex than they will appear from the outside (especially from a coin cabinet the other side of the Atlantic). The author of the 2008 PAS Review has therefore our sympathies because it seems she was under-resourced to conduct this key policy document. She writes

Because of the short timescale, much of this review was done on the basis of information in websites, magazines and other publications, and I am sorry that it was not possible to speak to a wider range of people or to visit more groups.

She forgot to mention that (perhaps under the influence of the campaign being conducted by antiquity collectors) the websites and magazines she consulted were chiefly those of “metal detectorists”. Much of her deliberations over the options available for the future organization of the PAS seems to have been done on the basis of talking to PAS staff and metal detectorists and their supporters. In her acknowledgements she cites “Kurt Adams, Roger Bland and his staff, Gail Boyle, Harry Bain, Steve Critchley, Paul Gilman, Suzie Thomas and Pete Twinn.” This is an interesting collection of names, in part it’s a somewhat incestuous selection. Kurt Adams is her local PAS Finds Liaison Officer, he is based in Bristol City Museum (Bristol is 28 km from Wotton-Under-Edge), where Gail Boyle works as Curator of Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology Peter Twinn is a metal detectorist from the Bristol region and one of the organizers of the campaign to keep a “detector-friendly” PAS. Steve Critchley is the chairman of the National Council for Metal Detecting, Harry Bain is the editor and publisher of “the Searcher” metal detecting magazine. The bibliography of just 15 references hardly give the impression that the author has cast her net widely in weighing up the various options for a sustainable PAS.

The passage quoted above is more or less the only statement of the methodology used to gather information on which the review is based. The 1995 CBA report “metal detecting in England” was produced in a similar timespan, but a comparison with the rather fuller presentation on the sources used, its acknowledgements and list of references shows what can be achieved, given the resources. Two questions remain, why was this review under-resourced (and how much actually did it cost?) and why did Kate Clark Associates take it on, knowing that?

The 2008 Review takes a very narrow view of what the PAS does. For Kate Clark, it’s apparently all about a “partnership” with “metal detecting”. This is perhaps a reflection of the atmosphere engendered by the anti-MLA campaign launched by UK “metal detectorists” in the months preceding the review. A count of words with the root “detect-” reveals that in the 44 pages, it appears 180 times, while the word “finder” appears 78. If however the latter are examined in context, it can be seen that in the majority of cases the writer is using the term to refer primarily to those who find archaeological collectables with metal detectors. The word “accidental” (as in accidental finds) does not appear, and the word “chance” (as in the "chance find" of the Valetta Convention) only refers (once) to the chance of finding treasure – with a metal detector. A number of people who have reported something to or otherwise helped the Scheme or archaeologists are mentioned by name at various points in the text. I counted sixteen. Every single one of them is a metal detectorist; not a single non-collecting member of the public is mentioned as having contributed anything at all significant in this review. That is despite the fact that they comprise almost a third of the people reporting finds to the Scheme in the past few years.

The PAS was formed partly to mitigate damage to the archaeological resource caused by “metal detecting” as if that was some kind of substitute for preventing it. The New PAS however is to reflect a “partnership” and “balances the views and interests of finders” and “training finders (sic) to help record the finds” (which are for the most part the products of artefact hunting). One of the new aims is to include “creating a positive role for detectorists”. By this means they move from coping with and mitigating the damage to servicing those who cause it and thereby conferring specific approval on them. This is further emphasized by promoting the record of the products of artefact hunting as some kind of a valuable resource, more valuable than encouraging the preservation of the archaeological record itself, by which the NuPAS becomes an operation that puts Britain even further at odds with world opinion. The notion of "balancing the views and interests of finders" telegraphs the fact that it is primarily “metal detectorists” that the New PAS will be servicing. What "views and interests" do individual normal accidental finders have? None.

The whole of nine million pounds worth of a decade of operation of the PAS is summarized in just five pages (Chapter one pp. 9-14). The next five pages of the review are devoted to a rather simplistic and somewhat rosy-spectacled presentation of “metal detecting” (Chapter two, pp. 14-18). There is no equivalent chapter on the reporting or outreach to the accidental (chance) finders of archaeological finds who are currently NOT collectors of portable antiquities. This is despite the fact that in terms of sheer numbers, outreach to them should be a priority of the PAS, both old and new. Why is this whole sector of “finders” and potential finders treated so dismissively in this review? There are over 54 million people in the British Isles who not only have never held a metal detector and made personal collections of artefacts removed from archaeological assemblages , but are unlikely to ever want to. Yet all of them are the target of PAS outreach, all of them are encouraged to keep their eyes open for any potential archaeological finds and know where to report them. Kate Clark’s review and proposed NuPAS leaves this outreach totally out of the picture, but devotes most of the text to a study of how the New PAS can best, as it were, “serve” in some kind of “partnership” the eight to ten thousand exploitive individuals that collect artefacts. This totally changes the emphasis of the Scheme. Instead of being central to a resource management based archaeological approach, the NuPAS seems set to become a marginalized aberration, an appendage of artefact collections.

The author of the 2008 PAS Review was asked to recommend how the Scheme can be funded and managed in the future in a sustainable way. It seems to me that the sympathetic version of the practices of artefact hunting she has adopted in the report as a whole and especially in the superfluous Chapter two have led to her seriously downplaying the role of the PAS in mitigating the erosion of artefact hunting which was the reason for it being set up in the first place. As a result, the author has not examined this aspect of the current and future functioning of the PAS in any detail. She apparently accepts the soothing messages put out by the PAS suggesting that the current total of finds being reported to the Scheme by metal detector users is acceptable – and clearly has ignored any contrary opinions.

There is some considerable doubt about to what degree the PAS can currently be seen as providing any sort of mitigation of the cumulative, long term and permanent damage being caused to the UK's archaeological record by the deliberate removal of archaeological finds from it by collectors for entertainment and profit. Clark makes much of the database of 350 000 objects (a more accurate idea of the information being recorded would be given by quoting the number of records, not finds within a record) and seems to regard that as a satisfying quantity. This should be seen however in the light of the model presented by the Heritage Action artefact erosion counter which estimates that until today, since the start of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, 3,475, 000 recordable artefacts have been removed from the archaeological record and disappeared into scattered ephemeral collections. The fact that just 350 000 of them were recorded by the PAS really is no reason for comfort. If these figures are correct (and I believe that essentially they are) it actually means that 90% of the archaeological material being removed from the ground in the UK by metal detector users is simply disappearing and we have no idea what is taken or where its going. It seems inconceivable to me that any proper review of the past decade of operation of the PAS would not take that into account.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme claimed (page 9 of its eighth annual report for 2005/6) well over a year ago that it had actually fulfilled its own fifth aim which was the all-important task of defining:

the nature and scope of a scheme for recording portable antiquities in the longer term, to assess the likely costs and to identify resources to enable it to be put into practice.

It turns out that despite this explicit claim, subsequent events showed that not only had it not in fact actually done this at all, but had no idea how to start (it remains an open question why an official scheme would state it had when this was not true and that no questions were asked about such behaviour when it turns out it had not).

Kate Clark (without commenting on the previous claim) has set about doing this, but on the assumption that the current levels of recording do not need to change drastically. Surely as a first step in designing a PAS that will act as part of a coherent heritage management policy, relatively reliable information on the actual numbers of artefact hunters involved and the patterns of their activities is required. A decade’s activity of the PAS might be expected to have produced this information and a review of that decade would normally start on using that as a basis for future prognosis. Well, all we learn from Clark’s review (p. 15) is that

It is difficult to estimate the number involved in England and Wales, as many people who have bought detectors don’t use them regularly, but both the clubs and the PAS estimate that there are between 8,000 and 10,000 people who actively take part in the hobby.

It should be noted that this is up 2000 on the estimate (about 8000) provided by the Head of the Scheme in a recent text (Rescue News 99). It should be noted that the Heritage Action figures quoted above are based on the total number of active detectorists involved in England and Wales as 8700, not 10 000.

Clark refers several times in her review (pp. 6, 28-9, 36, 38) to the “demand for recording” as though this was a service provided to “finders” rather than an archaeological resource conservation measure mitigating information loss. She sees this “demand” as increasing in future but soothes (p. 38) that “An increase of £160,000 (c 12%) would enable PAS is to maintain regional equity and put in place a long term solution to the ever increasing demand for recording”. If 12% more money could be translated into 12% more recording of archaeological artefacts being removed from the record by UK collectors, it still means that 89% of the finds predicted by the Heritage Action model would be vanishing without record. How much would it cost to get 75% coverage of this lost information? About ten million pounds annually should fix it. Ten million pounds to service the archaeologically erosive hobby of eight to ten thousand (one in 6000 individuals). That seems too high a cost to me.

I think that is why nobody in the pro-collecting lobby is at all interested in determining the patterns of activity and real effects on the archaeological record of current archaeological (so-called “heritage management”) policy. I would argue that a decade of operation of the PAS costing us all in excess of eight million quid should have equipped us with detailed information of precisely this type. I would ask why it did not. I would ask why Kate Clark’s review did not point this out.

The reader will however note a further inconsistency in Clark’s treatment. In her highly selective paean to metal detectorists (Chapter two, p. 15-6) she mentions with apparent approval (or a lack of disapproval) the UK Detector Finds database. She does not point out any of the problems which have led to it being criticized by some (but by no means not all) archaeologists and conservationists. Seeing that this database costs the ordinary citizen not a penny, the reader might well ask therefore why following the model of this database is not one of the “options” considered in her discussion of funding the NuPAS? Exploring all the options in a government funded review would require a fuller treatment of this issue. If nothing else, the differences between it and the PAS are a significant pointer to the fact that the latter does not accurately reflect what this particular group of “finders” think a database of their finds should look like. Also the guides to particular categories of “small finds” which its users have written are precisely what one should be finding on the PAS website, showing readers what information these objects can provide. I am not an admirer of the UKDFD, but think it has important lessons to which this review should have paid much more attention. Clark mentions it but does not examine it to suggest alternative options to the NuPAS she sets out to institute.

* How much would the Heritage Action figures have to “be wrong” to make them and the current rate at which the PAS is recording the vanishing information acceptable? 20%? 30%? 50%?

I have earlier suggested that an analysis of the text of the 2008 PAS review seems to suggest that it was written ‘backwards’; rather than inducing its conclusion from arguments, the text appears to have been constructed starting with the conclusion and deductively fitting arguments to lead to them.

Another example appears on page 19, Clark says one [anonymous] expert sees PAS data as creating a

new cultural map of England and Wales through new insights into the material culture of ordinary people and ordinary places. It (sic) has also shown the far-reaching contacts and cosmopolitan nature of Britain from prehistory onwards…

I think it would be difficult to make a more banal statement about what archaeological finds can tell us. This has been one of the commonplaces since the early years of the twentieth century and those dotty diffusionist and invasion hypotheses, and discussions of "trade" and cross channel contacts… What is interesting however is that this odd “cosmopolitan” remark can be seen in the context of a later passage in the review. This is on page 34 where the author discusses the various options for funding and delivery of the New Portable Antiquities Scheme:

PAS also meshes with the three priorities in the current British Museum review – ‘in the city’, ‘across the country’ and ‘throughout the world’ – by creating partnerships across the country and revealing the cosmopolitan nature of English
society through time.

The banality has been harnessed to support the conclusion that the rightful place of the NuPAS is in the British Museum.

Another example of backward logic is found on page 28, where we learn

This review has suggested that the current objectives of PAS do not entirely reflect its impact or achievements. At present they are: […] Instead they should reflect the fact that PAS is…[…].

Elsewhere in the review the PAS is praised for its “clear sense of direction” (p. 30), and yet its objectives do not reflect what it has been doing…. Maybe somebody could explain to me this other meaning of the term “objectives”. It seems to me that the purpose of the review of a Scheme that has actually had the same objectives since 2003 should primarily be seeing whether the actual results adequately reflect those objectives and not the other way around! Anyhow, seeing that the results do not reflect the original objectives, Clark has suggested some more, to fit the results. How about looking at the Scheme and its context and setting some aims for the Scheme based on that?

The 2008 PAS Review has created a whole new set of objectives for the New PAS. As mentioned above, Clark points out the old ones were not adequate to what the Scheme was actually doing (sic). Instead (page 28) they should reflect the fact that PAS is:

• creating a virtual collection that is influencing our understanding of the past;
• bringing finders and museums/archaeologists together in a partnership contributing to that understanding;
• improving knowledge and skills in object identification and conservation in curators, finders and archaeologists;
• enabling more people and a wider range of people to engage with museums and archaeology by creating a positive role for detectorists and other finders; and
• promoting best practice by finders, curators and archaeologists.

Formerly we had an archaeological body engaged in archaeological outreach to the general public to instil best practice and prevent information loss through unreported discoveries. Now Ms Clark has recommended that we have an autonomous body, a NuPAS consisting of a partnership with artefact hunters and collectors which at public expense will be engaged in improving knowledge and skills in object identification and conservation promoting best practice in curators and archaeologists. ACCG officers Wayne Sayles, Dave Welsh and Peter Tompa could not have composed this better themselves!

Expanding the PAS as a nationwide archaeological British Museum-run Uberinstitution guiding these aspects in all archaeology, curation and conservation as well as fulfilling its mission to the general public is fatally overstretching its resources (and I would venture archaeological goodwill towards it).

In the 2008 PAS Review assessing the objectives of the New PAS in the light of the changes in regional museum provision, most particularly the “Renaissance programme”, the main arguments of the author seem to be that the New PAS is intimately linked to museums as it gets people involved in museum activities who would otherwise not be.

This sits rather uneasily with the prevailing doctrine which is that in the UK the local “metal detectorists” only dig archaeological artefacts out of archaeological assemblages because of a “passionate interest in the past”. One might ask if they are so passionately interested in the past, how is it possible they cannot find the entrance door to a museum? It also raises the question why the non-collecting British public would want to entrust the curation of a substantial portion of the British archaeological heritage in scattered ephemeral collections of artefacts to people who have no great affinity for or interest in museums? Maybe they should be asked if this is what they want (after they are told how much it costs and what proportion of the evidence lost annually is in fact being saved).

Clark several times presents the PAS database as a “a virtual collection of c. 350,000 objects used by a quarter of a million individuals each year” (p. 5, 12, 19, 23, 25, 28, 31). The first of the new aims of the Scheme are intended to reflect therefore (p. 28) that it is “creating a virtual collection that is influencing our understanding of the past”. Some sixty to seventy percent of those finds that it contains however are the product of artefact hunting, the deliberate dismantling of the archaeological record as a source of collectables for somebody’s entertainment and profit. This is to be presented as a public benefit by the NuPAS Ms Clark proposes establishing .

The statistics of “number of hits” on the PAS website has always been a staple of their annual report ‘spin’; numbers with six zeroes on the end always look impressive. So the PAS website received 250 000 hits last year. Big deal. Just to put it in perspective, this metal-detector-related You Tube video posted November 29, 2007 has received more visits than the PAS website (currently 335,203 ) and this is just one of the videos on this rivetting topic (and not very well presented at that). Equally one could compare the number of virtual visits to the PAS artefacts showcase with visitor figures to single museums and the number of hits on the websites of individual museums from which it can be seen that the PAS has not really been providing anything which other museums are not capable of delivering (but at a lesser overall cost to the archaeological heritage than in the case of the PAS-displayed artefacts).

It is interesting to reflect that modern museums have been emptying the extensive row-upon-row displays of similar-looking pots and brooches that used to be the civic pride and joy in the early part of the 20th century, making a more definite division between display and reserve collections. It was assumed that this is what the public wanted, more easily assimilated ‘sound-bite’ displays rather than a mass of information to be individually searched. If Ms Clark thinks the PAS database – the “virtual” equivalent of the over-stuffed showcases of the past with rows and rows of similar looking artefacts - is really what the public want, then maybe it is time to reflect on current display policies. Are we underselling the public which is why they no longer come to museums?

Maybe we should be heeding all those collectors who say we should not be holding reserve collections in storerooms (where they are “rotting away” they claim) and put them on display again. Far more emotive than an image on a computer screen.

The 2008 PAS Review has created a whole new set of objectives for the Scheme. Some of them reflect that the new Scheme that its author proposes creating is no longer envisaged primarily as a means of providing archaeological outreach to the accidental finders of artefacts. It now seems likely to be even more concentrated than before on collaborating (in a “partnership”) with those who exploit the archaeological record as a source of collectables for entertainment and profit.

The old Portable Antiquities Scheme was always very wary of discussing with “metal detectorists” the archaeological approach to using metal detectors and digging tools in certain sensitive situations, such as artefact-producing areas which are permanent pasture or earthwork sites, or emptying archaeological sites already known in the literature of archaeological finds. The PAS was caught between the feelings of some archaeologist who expected them above all (as part of their outreach on behalf of the discipline) to impart such ethical guidelines to artefact hunters and the artefact hunters themselves who wanted to be left to get on with emptying the archaeological record into their scattered ephemeral collections with the minimum of interference. As Clark (p. 28) puts it “Detectorists simply want FLOs to be ‘independent’ – in other words to not be antagonistic towards the hobby”. Independent that is of the rest of archaeological thought on such matters. The PAS has spent the last ten years not only not being antagonistic towards massive artefact hunting and portable antiquity collecting, but promoting the official line presenting it as in the public interest, and those that engage in it as “the unsung heroes of the UK's heritage". In fact it would appear that not everybody (in the PAS?) feels that this outreach needs to be done at all. One of the [unsourced] opinions Clark quotes (p. 28) is that “recording should remain a priority for the scheme as outreach can be done by others”. That is simply nonsensical – the ability of the PAS to do outreach about the archaeological aspects of finding portable antiquities was the prime motivation for funding the PAS in the first place. Where is this all leading?

Kate Clark’s 2008 PAS review contains a number of words and phrases which are inadequately defined. The word “finder” is used to refer to two quite separate categories of the artefact-finding public. It is a nonsense not to differentiate the little old lady from Surrey who finds a Neolithic axe while tending her rose garden (or the Tyneside builder who finds a spearhead in a house-extension foundation trench) from the collector of portable antiquities in Milton Keynes who has a shed-full of "metal-detected" Roman brooches and coins taken from a variety of “productive sites” all around the country. This is the case in particular in sentences such as “Many finders have a lot of knowledge but lack formal training. FLOs and Finds Advisers should focus outreach on involving finders and other volunteers in the work of the scheme, including recording, education and promotion” (p. 6 – presumably she is referring to "metal detectorists" rather than rose gardeners).

Equally we have seen earlier that the author of the 2008 PAS Review is unable to provide a full enough definition of the word “nighthawk” to make sense in the context of what she claims about them.

I was puzzled by the meaning she attaches to a word which occurs several times in the review. That word is “sceptical”. Page 6: PAS has overcome the scepticism of archaeologists and the mistrust of finders to create a partnership in the understanding of the past. Page 7: The scheme attracts fierce loyalty from finders and partner organisations; even sceptical archaeologists and finders have been won over. Page 10 however: several archaeologists remain deeply sceptical. Page 31: There is still some scepticism about the scheme from archaeologists (although surveys show that this is less apparent amongst those who have close contact with the scheme). Page 32: rebuild (sic) trust between detectorists, archaeologists and museums. Although there are still sceptics on both (sic) sides, PAS has done much to rebuild that trust.

Clarkian “PAS-scepticism” would therefore seem to be an attribute associated mainly with archaeologists. About what are they sceptical? They are sceptical “about the Scheme”, but it is not clear what aspects. But after they come into close contact with the Scheme, their scepticism disappears (I presume she is intimating that only those ignorant of the Scheme are sceptical of whatever it is that arouses their scepticism). Or maybe they have closer contact with a scheme in “partnership” with artefact hunters only after their scepticism disappears. Who knows? Without definition, it’s difficult to determine what the symptoms of PAS-scepticism are. I wonder whether I am what Clark would consider as a PAS-sceptic. I suspect that what she means is what Sayles and the ACCG acolytes label “radical archaeologists” and David Gill “archaeologists with integrity”.

If I have read her intentions correctly, I think Ms Clark’s disparaging tone about these sceptics is misplaced. It is not these “PAS-sceptical” archaeologists that are supporting what most European and North American archaeologists don't. In fact, we know exactly who its overseas supporters are, and why.

An inquest was held by West Sussex Coroner Penelope Schofield at Worthing Town Hall on November 18th on sixteen Roman coins dating to between 260AD and 285AD discovered on downland in Storrington in June. They were found by Anthony Gill, a "metal detector enthusiast" from Thakeham who says he has been "detectoring" for more than 30 years. The coins were found buried 16 inches underground on downland at Storrington in June. That's 0.4 metres. It does not sound much like these coins were threatened by the plough. Neither does it seem from the newspaper report (which otherwise goes to excessive pains to point out how law abiding Mr Gill had been) that any archaeologists were present at the removal of these finds from this depth to determine what kind of context they had come from.

Reuters (U.S. museum returns 14 stolen artifacts to Italy Wed Nov 19, 2008) recently covered the recent announcement that Cleveland Museum of Art is surrendering recently acquired looted archaeological artefacts (they call it “art”) to the Italian authorities. The news agency points out that:

Italy's approach has provoked international debate. Critics say large U.S. museums can often care for pieces better than institutions in the country of origin.

This is not really a matter of who has the prettiest, airiest galleries to display “artworks”. Groups like SAFE are aguing that we need to be making sure that the public is fully aware that their concern should be focussed on the process (looting) rather than the products (loot). Too often have the ‘repatriation’ and ‘whose heritage’ debates dominated at the expense of the real conservation issues that underlie them, which is the continued destruction of the archaeological and cultural heritage of many regions of the world to serve a voracious no-questions-asked collectors’ market.

Museums have an educational role too, but the Cleveland Museum’s press release skips over the question of why they finally agreed these objects did not belong in a museum which they say has a “commitment to build and maintain a collection of art from around the world and across time that is acquired in good faith using the highest ethical standards and after rigorous provenance research”. The Italians showed convincing evidence that these items had come from recent looting (and thus wanton destruction of) of ancient archaeological sites.

Whether US museums are nicer, individually or generally, than Italian ones is immaterial here. The “our museums are better than theirs” argument is just a version of the “only giving them a good home” one discussed by Colin Renfrew (2000: Loot, legitimacy and ownership).

Basically its like somebody clandestinely taking an otherwise unthreatened sculpted angel from a monument in a nineteenth century graveyard and putting it in their hallway, saying it looks nicer there and is “better looked after” than standing on the top of a pedestal in the open. It is still stealing, it is still destruction of the heritage.

Photo: Angel from the old cemetery in Powązki, Warsaw. Poland (not in my hallway).

Yesterday I discussed the effusive gratitude of the head of British archaeology's largest public outreach programme addressed to artefact hunters and collectors for their contribution to influencing UK heritage policy. A similar message has just appeared on Britarch (posted by Mike Heyworth on behalf of Roger Bland). It reads:

Statement on PAS: The outcome of the Review of the Portable Antiquities Scheme commissioned by MLA was announced today. [...] I would like to conclude by offering my thanks to those on Britarch who gave their support when the Scheme was in difficulties a year ago.

Roger Bland is registered on at least one metal detecting forum, where he has chatted with them about gold coins they have found. It's a shame that as the head of "archaeology's largest public outreach" he could not bring himself to actually register with one of the most active British archaeological forums and share the breaking news personally, rather than it reaching them second-hand a day late. It is also notable that the message differs greatly in tone at the end. This is how he concluded the one on the UKDN Forum, sent twenty-four hours ago:

All of us in PAS are tremendously grateful for the wonderful support UK Detector Net gave us when we were threatened with funding cuts and our future looked uncertain. I think you can see that the whole situation is now transformed thanks in large part to the support you gave us earlier this year.

I find this rather symbolic of a PAS that seems to be moving further and further away from being archaeological outreach to a service provider and legitimiser for artefact hunting and collecting.

It is worth noting that in these messages sent out after the review, the Head of the Scheme expresses his satisfaction with the outcome of the review and thereby by implication his acceptance of the Recommendations.

I have already expressed my initial feeling that Kate Clark has done a rather superficial job of writing the government-sponsored review of the PAS which many of us thought, given her background, would lead to a fresh approach to the conservation issues which would serve as a basis for future policy decisions. From that point of view, the document we received yesterday has been a serious disappointment.

As I read it yesterday, I noticed she had mentioned me and this blog in passing (apparently the only critic of current British policy on artefact hunting and collecting mentioned by name), but only today have I paid more attention to what she says and in what context.

In Chapter two – devoted for some reason entirely to “metal detecting” she writes:

Some archaeologists are worried that detecting is feeding an illicit trade in antiquities. Paul Barford, vocal critic feels strongly that PAS encourages the trade in portable antiquities.

To substantiate this she includes a link to a post in this blog. But that post says absolutely nothing to justify the statement in a government sponsored review about me “feeling strongly” that PAS encourages the trade in portable antiquities (its about the PAS encouraging responsible collecting).*

My first impression was that her citing a random post from this blog was just a gratuitous reference to make it look as if she had done more reading into the topic than she actually had and suggest that she’d paid equal attention to both sides of an argument (see the comments by “lootingobserver” here which indicate I am not alone in thinking she had not).

But its not that simple. Look at the juxtaposition. “Some (unnamed) archaeologists… illicit trade in antiquities”/ “Paul Barford [reference] feels strongly that PAS encourages the trade in portable antiquities …”. This is then followed directly by an [unsourced] reference to the 2003 Dealing in Cultural Property (Offences) Act about ‘tainted cultural objects’ . Clark’s text shows signs of hasty construction and in places is badly written (a number of spelling mistakes for example), so perhaps this is just bad phrasing. Equally however it can be assumed that the author is implying that Paul Barford has accused the PAS of encouraging the illicit trade in portable antiquities (which is not the case). Neither is it true that anyone (that I am aware of) has actually accused the Portable Antiquities Scheme of encouraging the illicit trade in portable antiquities. This could be disregarded as a relatively insignificant infelicity of words were it not for what we find on page 30 of the same text. There Clark writes:

Given that illicit trading in cultural objects is a risk to the heritage and also represents a reputational risk for PAS (if it is seen to be associated with or to encourage it) then it is vital that the scheme retains this capacity.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme has to retain its capacity to do something because, if not, it could be seen to be associated with or encouraging the illicit trade of antiquities? What a stupid idea, who would do such a thing? Well, the reader may remember that a dozen or so pages earlier of her text there was some mention of such a crazy bloke with a blog who they were led to think, by the way it had been sandwiched between two other sentences discussing this, had been doing such a thing…

Analysing the structure of this text (and there are other examples), it really does look to me very much like Ms Clark had started off with a vision of what the PAS should look like (basically there need be no real change except those that the MLA paymasters had earlier announced would take place anyway) and set about fitting her review to it. There is little sign that she really did make much of an effort to identify any alternatives. It looks like she wanted to find a reason to retain one function of the PAS (one actually not included in the formulation of its aims back in 2003), so stressed the importance of the reputational threat created by those critics in the UK that accuse the PAS of encouraging the illicit trade in portable antiquities. Trouble is, she could not find a reference to that in the limited range of literature she consulted, so it looks very much to me that she fudged one.

Or perhaps it really is just bad writing?

*Of course if Ms Clark had taken the trouble to ask this “vocal critic” what I do feel most strongly is most troubling about current archaeological policy implemented through the PAS, I would have had no problems in telling her.

Vignette: Shady accusing guy (Photo in the BM, Cory Doctorow)

In the MLA’s “A Review of the Portable Antiquities Scheme” (Clark K 2008) we are told [oddly enough, in the “Recommendations” p. 6] that “it [the PAS] also seems to have reduced the amount of illicit detecting on archaeological sites”. This is important because the author suggests (p. 7) “closing the scheme” would be deleterious because “illicit detecting (and thus loss of sites) may increase”. It seems de rigeur these days to accept that the Portable Antiquities Scheme is the best thing since sliced bread for “stopping looting”. Certainly that’s what Derek Fincham asserts (though cites no source for this belief), and as we have seen Californian coin dealer and ACCG officer Dave Welsh too. Just repeating an idea does not make it true. Now. however, the MLA has produced a report which says the same. Let’s have a look more closely.

Clark’s definition of Illicit detecting can be found on page 18 of the report:

So-called ‘nighthawks’ use metal detectors on sites without the permission of the landowner.

That's it. Well, that is by no means an adequate or full definition of illicit artefact hunting even in England and Wales, not by a long chalk. But there is more:

“Not only can such activities damage archaeology, they damage the reputation of responsible metal detectorists by association”.

This is the typical British politically correct newspeak – we catch the Oxford Nighthawk Survey saying the same thing, its one of the typical metal detectorist whinges too. Clark even cites “The Searcher (metal detecting magazine)” to make the point.

Well actually the problem is more complex than that. Illicit artefact hunting (be it in England or Afghanistan) in fact not so much damages archaeology and the reputation of artefact hunters, but damages archaeology and the reputation of the antiquities market that thrives on it. The Brits are so wrapped up in their narrow insular preoccupation of being nice to artefact collectors that it seems they find it terribly difficult to see the wider context of the debate. All forms of clandestine and illegal artefact hunting are the real – and almost only – reason for the disapproval among archaeologists and other conservation-minded folk of the artefact trade and portable antiquity collecting.* I cannot see where British archaeologists have a problem seeing it in those terms and where such statements come from.

So how much illegal artefact hunting is going on in the UK? Well, since it is a clandestine act, the answer is that we really do not know. Ms Clark mentions on page 9 of her text the survey done by Dobinson & Denison (1995 - she gives the wrong year of publication in the text and totally misrepresents it as "a report on the illicit use of metal detectors"). She says they found that "...188 scheduled ancient monuments (SAMs) had been attacked in the [previous] five years and that 37 out of 50 archaeological units reported raids on excavation sites”. But on page 18 of her review she makes the following bald statement:

Initial results [of the Nighthawking Survey] suggest that the problem has decreased significantly since the last survey in 1995 – the amount of damage to monuments has been reduced by a half and 27% of units report problems. It is possible that a strong, local ‘responsible’ metal detecting community might act as a ‘watch dog’ and deterrent to illicit detecting.

This looks like pre-publication ‘leak’ of the preliminary Oxford Nighthawking Survey results (though the survey is not mentioned in the acknowledgements as having supplied such information). It would seem from this then, extrapolating from Ms Clark's 'leaked' summary of these results, that the Nighthawking Survey has been informed about illegal metal detecting on c. 94 scheduled ancient monuments in the whole of the UK, which would be the context of Clark's assertion that the number is “down by a half”.

The quoting of these figures in this context is laughable. First of all, Clark’s own definition of “nighthawking” from page 18 does not mention scheduled monuments, while that was the only category studied by Dobinson & Denison, and by inference this must be the yardstick to which she is referring. So how many archaeological sites which are not scheduled sites (like the field at Stixwould) are being looted by nocturnal trespassing thieves armed with metal detectors? In fact where are these reports expected to come from? How is a farmer with several thousand hectares to know his field was visited by nighthawks? If they don’t break down the fences or leave gates open and fill the holes in and there is rain between their visit and the time a farmer visits that particular area of his farm, there would be few traces (or none that could not be equally attributable to poachers, or other intruders).

Secondly Clark fails to stress that Dobinson and Denison's survey was restricted to England and Wales, while the Oxford Survey covers the entire UK, including the Channel Islands. The PAS only operates in a part of this area. If so-called nighthawking has decreased in the area as a whole, including those not covered by the Scheme, then the effect is not due to the Scheme. I really do think we need to see the actual results of the Oxford Survey before making any statements like the ones we find in this review and drawing hasty conclusions from them.

In particular I am disturbed by the apparent assumption by the Oxford survey that "responsible metal detectorists" will “shop” fellow metal detectorists by filling in their questionnaire. This is very naïve. UK metal detectorists stick together and rarely do this kind of thing - except out of spite. As we have seen, metal detectorists are fully aware who among them does this kind of thing, where and when it is going on. As Stixwould rally organizer Norman Smith said: “the problem is we all know who they are and do nowt about it". So much for the notion that if any drop in frequency of illegal activity is a real one, it is because "responsible detectorists are policing sites". Far from it, most responsible detectorists generally keep well clear of such folk, they have a reputation for being dangerous. Several of my contacts have been threatened by these less savoury elements just for expressing support for the PAS. I have heard reports of damage done to cars of responsible detectorists who have criticised the unethical behaviour of fellow detector users. It is pretty telling that even the archaeologists involved in the Oxford Survey have decided that they should preserve their anonymity for fear of reprisals.

An interim statement has appeared in the periodical British Archaeology (Anon 2008). One of the questions examined was whether “nighthawking” occurred across the whole country or whether it was concentrated in certain hotspots, preliminary results suggested it was most prevalent in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland (Anon 2008, 24). Oddly enough it is precisely in three of these counties that the first attempts were made to "liaise" with metal detectorists (Tony Gregory and colleagues in Norfolk and the Fenland regions in the 1970s). The interim statement makes no mention of any "reduction by half" of damage to sites in the UK generally. The looting that is currently going on affects both scheduled and unscheduled sites; Roman ones were particularly targetted (Roman artefacts find a wider international market than Anglo-Saxon, Medieval or prehistoric ones), and it was noted that raids were more frequent on sites near to motorways. More interesting, preliminary results suggest that “there is evidence of an efficient grapevine, whereby nighthawks are notified immediately after a suitable phase of cultivation, or just before legal archaeological or metal detecting surveys” (Anon 2008, 24). This of course goes against the general trend within artefact hunting as a whole to protect information about potential search sites from fellow artefact hunters and suggests the prospect that in Britain too (as certainly is the case in the Balkans and Crimea), to some extent illegal metal detector use and the sale of portable antiquities is in some way linked with organized crime.

The author of this interim report stress that the archaeological issues are about more than the common law theft of the objects, but the “unrecorded removal of archaeological material can irretrievably distort the archaeological ‘signature’ of a site, or even destroy it altogether. Artefacts retrieved (sic) in this way lose much or all of their potential to inform about the past, and may suffer substantial damage”. The authors note that people affected by this crime in the UK do not have confidence in the police, magistrates or the Crown Prosecution Service (to which I bet we could add "archaeologists") to take effective action. In general, illegal metal detector use is treated as a relatively low priority crime by police forces in most of the country (though both Kent and Wales police forces now have small units dedicated to fighting heritage crime). When successful prosecutions are made, the resulting sanctions are often no more than token cautions or small fines.

There could be many reasons why the Oxford Survey has no information of illegal metal detecting on all but 70 scheduled sites. It could be that so many scheduled sites were so badly denuded of anything collectable in the 1980s and 1990s that by 2007 their metal detecting was less profitable than it had been a decade earlier and the clandestine detectorists had moved on to other areas. Perhaps the metal detectorists are getting better at filling their holes in after digging. Maybe EH field monument wardens are not getting to as many sites as a decade ago (currently they visit each site on an average once every three years - so it is difficult to see how they could detect any nighthawking that was not leaving two-metre deep holes). Finally not all the sites are owned by farmer John Browning. The important point however is that this is not a problem that only affects scheduled sites are either undergoing nighthawking. To prevent nighthawks finding sites where collectables may be found, the findspot data in the entire PAS database is hidden from public view, not only that referring to scheduled sites.

The number of archaeological units reporting “nighthawk” activity is said to be lower than 1995, but then as far as I am aware, the number of units is far lower than it was nearly a decade and a half ago (Oxford Archaeology itself having become one of the expansive big units which as developed in recent years). Since, however, one of the main reasons why artefact hunters have been attacking archaeological excavations has been because the topsoil (contaminated with many modern non-collectable metal artefacts) has been removed – one wonders whether the Oxford Survey did muich outreach to building contactors to ask whether trespassing on building sites after earthmoving had also dropped in this period.

I think we are ill-served by the leaking of and drawing conclusions from the preliminary results of a complex and controversial joint project like this without the ability to assess the conclusions in the light of a presentation of the manner in which the data were gathered and their limitations. We are asked by the pro-collecting lobby to take too much on trust without any concrete and verifiable facts being presented to support the rosy picture they wish to paint. It may be that illegal artefact hunting has declined in Britain over the past decade, or it may be that there are many interests which have much to gain by pulling wool over everybody's eyes. Let us examine this new information in its wider context when the report appears.

*Clark goes on (p. 33) to note: PAS is also seen internationally as a pioneering way of dealing with the problem of illicit detecting. Banning detecting seems only to drive it ‘underground’ and to turn responsible detectorists with an interest in the past into criminals. Another typical “detectorist” whinge which I do not want to go into just now but is from the same stable. It is disappointing to see such things trotted out so glibly in a government sponsored report.

Anon 2008, Nighthawking’ British Archaeology Jan/Feb 2008.

Kate Clark the author of the recently published review of the PAS would appear to have a sly sense of humour. On page 34 of her text she writes:

The scheme adds value to the work of the British Museum, including its role in implementing the Treasure Act and related policy issues – in particular the control of the illicit trade in antiquities.

The BM controls the illicit trade in antiquities in Britain? No, it does nothing of the sort. The 'Treasure Unit' in the BM has a memorandum of understanding with eBay by means of which it polices eBay for undeclared Treasure items. Staff members pore over the listings contacting sellers about items which they feel contravenes the Treasure Act. Most of the time the seller tells them it is “from abroad” and there the matter ends, because “No British law has been broken”. This is despite the wording of the 2003 Dealing in Cultural Property (Offences) Act concerning the scope of the definition of “tainted artefact”. The British Museum does not attempt to uphold this law (still less promote the respecting of the laws of the 'countries of origin') in its “policing” of eBay. Perhaps from a logistic point of view it is entirely understandable, but from the archaeological one there is a rather more troubling ethical dimension involved. An additional ethical problem is the presence of enormous quantities of fake artefacts which any antiquities collector will tell you being sold in great quantities through eBay as genuine (looted) ones. I am pretty sure that the BM has the expertise to spot the suspicious scarab, the spurious shabti, the dodgy didrachm, and yet depite the BM having cast an eye over them, they pass muster and continue to be sold (misrepresenting fake antiquities and selling them as genuine is also against British law).

The buyer is told the antiquity sales on the UK eBay are “policed by the BM” and have the right to trust that what they buy is therefore legitimate and authentic – which I am sure is what eBay would tell them. No, Ms Clark, the British Museum does NOT have any control of the illicit trade in antiquities in London or Britain as a whole.

Personally though I do think that something called “the Portable Antiquities Scheme”, adequately resourced could be an effective way of putting into practice HM Government’s declared intent of “cleaning up the illicit antiquities market” in Britain which for several years now has remained just empty words.

About this time last year all hell broke out in "metal detecting" circles in the UK. It was announced that the Portable Antiquities Scheme would only get 1.3 million pounds, instead of the 1.3 million pounds they got the previous year. This of course was regarded as a "cut" and everybody was going to lose their jobs or something. To make matters worse, it was announced that the Scheme was to be merged into the MLA's Renaissance in the Regions programme, which would mean that it would be more fully integrated into the work of the regional network of museums. Disaster. Many "metal detectorists" predicted that widespread looting and non-reporting would ensue if some members had to drive the extra 20 miles to see the FLO they had worked with for nearly a decade.

A huge campaign was set in train by "metal detectorists" (three in particular, Steve Burch, Pete Twinn and Corinne Mills) who orchestrated a nationwide campaign. MPs were barraged by mails and letters from disappointed ("metal detecting") constituents, an online petition was set up and thousands of people signed it. Questions were asked in the House, the Culture Minister was given a grilling. Foreign collectors joined in too, the Minister received letters from them (including one from the ACCG) giving advice how he should proceed.

So, now the crisis is over. The metal detectorists feel that with the publication of the 2008 PAS review they have won a great victory. Why? Basically because the MLA has promised 1.3 million pounds and the PAS will be integrated with the Renaissance in the Regions programme. Great victory guys, a year ago these were nothing more nor less than what you were campaigning against.

But they are jubilant. On the forums they are congratulating themselves on their victory:

Hi Everyone What a brilliant communication.
Excellent news for the team at PAS.
It has been a fantastic group effort, and everyone has been rewarded for their dedication and support. An excellent result for all.
Its nice to read some good news for a change.
Looking good. So much for those who were heralding the demise of the PAS.

The real reason for all last year's fuss however was quite different. These "metal detectorists" are only too well aware (as are antiquity collectors abroad like the ACCG) that the Portable Antiquities Scheme shields the hobby of portable antiquity hunting and collecting from scrutiny and criticism. Their fear was that if the PAS was 'downgraded' (by being integrated into the Renaissance programme) its ability to do this would be lessened. Thus it was that the campaign was called by them "save the PAS, save our hobby" (variant form: "support your hobby or lose it, your choice").

I drew attention at the time to the fact that the Head of the Scheme was deliberately courting these "metal detectorists" on their forums and the campaign organisers were "somehow" getting internal PAS documents to use against the by now demonised Roy Clare (new chief executive of the MLA at whose door all these "problems" were being laid). At the time neither the Scheme head, nor any of his staff sent a single message to any archaeological forum asking for help - despite the PAS being considered "archaeology's biggest outreach to the public". Now I see Roger Bland has sent them (and even ancient coin collectors across the other side of the Atlantic) another message thanking the artefact collectors for their help and support, but has not extended this courtesy to the many archaeologists who also supported him in his fight against Rear Admiral Clare. Shame on him.

The much awaited Portable Antiquities Scheme review is now out. After all this waiting for what was promised, my first reading created a feeling of anti-climax. Much here however to mull over though, and some quotable quotes and significant omissions. The author seems to think the PAS is all about “metal detecting” (it is [was] not) though it seems to me on first reading that this is at odds with what she actually recommends. I was disappointed that there is not much attention paid to current British policies towards portable antiquity collecting as a whole, and whether they need discussion. This issue is skipped around, even though it should be fundamental to defining where the Scheme should be going. Anyway, more of this later no doubt.

I just could not believe that cover though. After writing all the expected stuff about how wonderful it is we have got a database of 350 000+ wonderful objects with nice archaeological contexts, somebody chose as the first illustration object SF-99E3E4 which was found by a metal detectorist and has been given the provenence “Cambridgeshire”. So an archaeological provenance of a site somewhere within 3389 km². This well emphasises the fact that by no means is all of the "information" being gathered by the Portable Antiquities Scheme for those 9.78 million pounds is as archaeologically useful or publicly available as others. That just about summarises the disappointingly small amount of joined-up thinking about the archaeological aspects of the Scheme that seems to me on first reading to have gone into this document. In one place (p 30) the author even says that the link between the Portable Antiquities [Advisory] Group and the APPAG* "inadvertently contribute to the impression that it is dominated by archaeological interests". Umm, if it is not, then who are they advising on what, precisely? Does this review, with its obvious focus on "getting people into museums" mean we are we to abandon now the pretence that the PAS has actually been doing any archaeological outreach?

Still, Roger Bland the Head of the Scheme is happy, he has just sent metal detectorists a big thank you on at least one of their UK forums for their campaigning on his behalf. The one to the UK archaeological forums has yet to arrive.

* All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group

Photo: Iconic portable antiquity from an archaeological context "somewhere in Cambridgeshire". Recorded by the PAS, and only they know where it's really from, but if you want to know you have ask nicely and prove yourself toi be a bone fide stakeholder.

"Lotsa luvvery treasures" in the BM today as the 2005-6 Treasure report is launched coincidentally on the same day as the 2008 review of the future of the PAS. See my earlier comments here. Why they've even got some Treasure on show... an Anglo-Saxon mount which is "probably from Hampshire" another from "somewhere in Essex". Great.

From what I saw of it before the PAS server collapsed this morning, the new Treasure report looks to be a hefty and lavishly illustrated account of glittering prizes brought to light largely as a result of British policies of encouraging “metal detectorists” to engage with the past by selectively denuding the archaeological record of collectables. The material presented in this report is however just the tip of the iceberg. English, Welsh and Northern Irish law define a very narrow range of items which the state regards as national 'treasure's. The vast majority of archaeological finds do not qualify. They can if the finder wants to and the landowner agrees be dug up anyhow and any time without record, bought and sold without record, discarded and melted down as “scrap” without anyone being any the wiser. Whole archaeological sites can be collected away without anyone batting an eyelid. But no matter, the BM has done well in saving a lot of the gold and silver bits one might say.

But how much of the information that was lost when they were taken from the ground has been saved in a reliably documented form and actually made available? We saw the other day that the inquest into one Treasure find simply did not address the detail of the circumstances of discovery and there remain lingering doubts that all was as was described - a lot of questions nobody wants to answer. In the case of the Stixwould hoard, there is considerable doubt whether the whole find has made it into the public domain, it would seem not (thus skewing the sample for any future research on the material). Then of course there are the Treasures which are never reported by their finders at all and simply sold off.

These are just three cases out of several hundred found by artefact huntrers and collectors which happen to have caught my attention in the past few days. To what degree would investigation throw up similar doubts about some, or even many, of the rest? The experience of the FLO involved in the Cold Brayfield find led him to comment to me that “whispers” tend to accompany many such finds. I wonder how forthcoming the new Treasure report will be found to be on such cases when one has the liberty to leaf through it and maybe confront its narrative with other sources.

Also on show at the BM today is the Snodland hoard also found in 2006, but unlike its near contemporary at Cold Brayfield, duly reported at the moment of discovery and excavated properly.* A perhaps significant difference is this was an accidental find made by a member of the public in earthmoving, and not by arterfact hunters and collectors.

There is good news in the launch for those who make their living selling metal detectors and portable antiquities. Apparently the increase in number of treasure finds has been helped, the press material cheerfully warbles, by "an increase in the the popularity of metal detectors" in the UK. Now this may be hopelessly 'unprogressive' of me, but I would have thought that a decade of archaeological outreach instilling "best practice" in the use of the archaeological record in the British public should be aiming to reduce and not increase the degree to which it is dug up willy nilly as a source of collectables for entertainment and profit. To what degree is the Portable Antiquities Scheme and archaeological institutions in Britain actually doing anything at all towards these aims?

*all those disbelieving US ancient coin collectors looking in, please note the Roman tile all around this hoard, another one to have been found actually on a Roman site.
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Vignette: Odyssey's 'Volvo' Treasure, their real reason, they say, for diving off the Spanish coast recently..

Does England and Wales have a co-ordinated legal and policy approach to archaeology as Derek Fincham of the College of Law of Loyola University New Orleans suggests? This is what he says in his text "A Coordinated Legal and Policy Approach to Undiscovered Antiquities: Adapting the Cultural Heritage Policy of England and Wales to Other Nations of Origin".

Has he actually asked any planning archaeologists in the UK about their thoughts on this? The announcement earlier this year of an imminent programme of building of hundreds of thousands of new homes in the UK was generally met by dismay by archaeologists, aware of how little of what will inevitable be destroyed (those "undiscovered antiquities") can be saved by virtue of those "policies". Fortunately more UK archaeology will be saved from obliteration by the credit crunch than those policies Fincham praises so highly.

In fact if Fincham was to talk with those that have to actually use it 'on the ground' (for example in development control) he would find that British archaeological legislation (including that on portable antiquities) is far from a well coordinated approach. It is a hotch-potch of loose elements and half-policies which seem not really too well integrated with each other and which have a number of gaps which are only filled by goodwill and the typical British fudge-it and make-do approach.

If the English and Welsh legal system is so super and well co-ordinated, what is the function of PPG 16 and related documents? How would Fincham relate the 'polluter pays' principle embodied in PPG16 (though not in any heritage law) to artefact hunting?

Derek Fincham also says (p. 355) that England and Wales have "a legal framework that essentially allows amateur and unprofessional (sic) digging". But is he suggesting that this model should be adopted in other countries? Like Iraq and Egypt? That any Tom, Dick and Hamid should be free to take a spade, metal detector or even bulldozer to an archaeological site in order to accumulate a sackful of portable antiquities for sale and another one of "scrap metal" for melting down? Is that what he is advocating - as long as there is a voluntary scheme to which they can, if they want, report some of the finds they are digging up? I do not understand the logic of this argument.

Also, is it actually true, as Fincham asserts, that British archaeological policy "cuts against the overriding policy choices of most nations of origin and sharply contrasts with the context-focused narrative found in most cultural heritage scholarship"? What on earth is Fincham on about? In what way is British archaeological policy and legislation not context-focussed? This is just nonsense. I queried it earlier, but Fincham merely dismissed my comment as "intellectually dishonest" without answering it. Preserving archaeological context is what all the ancient monuments (and planning) legislation is about, its what the Treasure Act and Code of Practice were written for, its why the PAS was set up. In what way is archaeological context treated any differently in Britain than the US, France, Poland or anywhere else? Not only am I at a loss to say how, but it seems the author of those words is too.

I also queried his statement (p. 349) that the institution of the Portable Antiquities Scheme had reduced looting of important archaeological sites. Since a government-sponsored survey was set up in 2007 to find the answer to the question of just how much looting was going on and its report is not due out for another few months yet (see post below), I really do not see how he can make such a claim without citing any evidence whatsoever. It is however a key point in his argument. If the PAS has NOT actually achieved much in this field, then it is not a solution to the "looting problem". These are a few of the questions which reading of his "A Coordinated Legal and Policy Approach to Undiscovered Antiquities: Adapting the Cultural Heritage Policy of England and Wales to Other Nations of Origin" leave unanswered.

"The Project - Nighthawks and Nighthawking: damage to archaeological sites in the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies caused by the illegal search for and removal of antiquities - is now finished". Not before time, it was originally scheduled to end in 2007, but I understand the gathering of information about illegal metal detecting from responsible metal detectorists and others has not been as straightforward as could have been hoped.

Apparently, despite it "being finished" we have to wait another four months to actually learn the results (why?). The results of the project and final report will apparently be launched at the Society of Antiquaries in London (strange choice of venue one would have thought) on the morning of Monday 16th February 2009.

In a text called An Unkind response to my PAS Article Derek Fincham now criticises me for analyzing in detail what he said in his recent Int Jnl. Cult. Prop. text: "A Coordinated Legal and Policy Approach to Undiscovered Antiquities: Adapting the Cultural Heritage Policy of England and Wales to Other Nations of Origin". I guess he was expecting everyone to nod their heads approvingly and write kindly “very nice Derek”. In this blog, I was however addressing the ideas rather than the author and wrote two pieces analyzing what he had written, one here and the second more detailed here (oddly enough, although he seems to be reacting to the second, in his reply today as it stands this evening, Fincham apparently only gives a hyperlink to the first of these two texts).

Anyway, he is not so much concerned with what I said about his main ideas because, as he puts it: I don't really have a lot to say about the points he raises, because there aren't any intellectually honest arguments. None at all Mr Fincham? I am sure the pro-collecting lobby are glad to hear that verdict.

Nevertheless, comparison of what I wrote with Fincham’s text by those able to see it within the context of how the PAS actually works in England and Wales will allow readers to make up their own minds whether the points I made are an honest reaction to what Fincham wrote or a dishonest and thoughtless one. Take it or leave it.

I made however a number of specific points, each of them referenced by page number to Fincham’s text. Of course merely categorizing my two responses as “intellectually dishonest” “petty attacks” neatly relieves Fincham of any reason to actually address any of the points I made, except to pretend that my remarks were based on things “taken out of context” and “twisted”. Fincham's published text however could have done with some much closer editing, and really does contain some very unfortunate statements, misleading ones too, which I tried to point out, and for that I make no apologies. I do think also - and fail to see why I cannot express that opinion - that the text is far too reliant on an uncritical use of a single source of information about the PAS (their own spin-filled annual reports). It is a shame that the author has not the grace to admit even this.

More importantly, I also pointed out where there were serious problems with the core idea of the text which were nowhere addressed in the original text and it is a matter of regret that Fincham has not taken the opportunity to expand on them in his reply.

Fincham ends his comments by lecturing us how to promote "meaningful discourse". My own feeling is that a "meaningful discourse" about the erosiove effects of portable antiquity collecting on the archaeological record can only develop when the people involved are not continually dodging the issues.

John Couchman, of Hemel Hempstead, and Lorraine Ayton, of Bedford, carelessly lost the contact address of two metal detecting "acquaintances" of theirs, and only knew their names were Stuart and Tracey and that they had left the country. Now "Stew" and "Trace" (I wonder if they were Central Searchers?) moved away from the area but not before asking John and Loraraine to sell a few items for them which they had found in summer 2004. The sad thing is that although the sale raised 205 quid, Couchman and Ayton did not know where to send the money. Now if you are out there Stew and Trace, John and Lorraine have some money for you. But they are not the only people who'd like to talk to you about those finds. The hoard of 15 Bronze Age items which was bought on eBay by Jeroen Zuiderwijk, a Dutch collector was repatriated and declared Treasure by Milton Keynes Coroner Rodney Corner (the same one as at Cold Brayfield) at an inquest in 2005. The only trouble is, nobody knows where "Stew and Trace" found the loot, and so the landowner for example cannot receive their share of the reward. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, what Stew and Trace did was very naughty. By law, they are supposed to report such a find within 14 days of discovery, not get somebody else to flog it off on the Internet. Milton Keynes does not seem to be having much luck with "metal detectorists".

How many more national treasures are being dug up and sold off abroad on the sly by anonymous metal detectors like "Stew" and "Trace"?
Perhaps the story had a happy end, maybe a Central Searcher "metal detectorist" found Stew and Trace's forwarding address in the end and the matter has been cleared up. I really do not see how it is possible that the finders could not be traced. It's a bit lame to get the stuff back from Holland and all you can say about its context and archaeological significance is "It does, though, throw up evidence of the Bronze Age and that there was bronze-smithing in the area." Duh!

Photo: The "Stew and Trace" Bronze Age hoard. Found in 2004 "somewhere in England".

A few days ago, as the result of my request for further information, I received from Rodney Corner (HM Coroner for the County & District of Milton Keynes) a copy of some of the documentation of the inquest 28th October 2008 concerning Treasure 2006/T.631 (Cold Brayfield). I found it disturbing in its implications for the light it sheds on the way “metal detecting” finds which fall into the category of Treasure cases are being handled in England. I am grateful to the coroner for his helpfiul approach.

The document reveals that the story presented at the inquest was more or less what the newspaper account of the inquest had reported. The date of the find was accepted (without query it seems) as 1st December – despite the fact that we have seen in the local metal detecting milieu there are accounts which suggest it was earlier. This is significant as by the terms of the Treasure Act, to stay within the law and obtain the reward the finder has 14 days to report the discovery and we find from the inquest documentation that the report was only made “on the 14th December 2006” (why?).

So what evidence was required to confirm this later date of discovery? Well, interestingly enough not confirmatory evidence from the landowner when these people by their own account had been digging three foot deep holes in their land. From the documentation I was given, it appears that the landowner was not represented at the inquest. I was surprised to learn from the Coroner (pers. Comm. 17.11.08) that evidence that the consent of the landowner was obtained “is not strictly necessary […] for a Treasure Inquest”. Now if that is the case that illegal metal detecting can also be rewarded by the state administered Treasure process of which the coroner's inquest is the first major step, it is nothing short of scandalous.

In my naivety I assumed that the function of a coroner’s inquest (like that which attends the discovery of a dead body) was concerned with ascertaining the exact circumstances surrounding the discovery. It seems not. Comparing the document which I received with what is currently being said by local metal detectorists suggests this one was a rather superficial rubber-stamp affair. Three witnesses were called: the finders, Phillips and Plasom and Watters (who was not even there when the Treasure was found) and a letter from the BM was read. I presume that this was accompanied by the BM report by Richard Abdy and Richard Hobbs which has been discussed here and by David Gill.

How strange then to read that the inquest found that the finders had “with the aid of metal detectors found between 1456 and 1471 coins” (the BM report only catalogues 1456), but that they had been “deposited in an ancient rubbish pit or midden”. This is despite the fact that the BM report, presumably submitted as evidence and drawing on documentation sent by the investigating archaeologist (Watters) states clearly that “due to the fact that the find had already been removed prior to investigation a stratigraphical relationship could not be established”. The fact that the finders had removed almost the entire find before reporting it is nowhere mentioned in the Coroner’s report. Neither is there any mention of whether proper procedure had been followed. So in the English Treasure process, whose responsibility is establishing this, if not the coroner’s?

We have seen that there is doubt in the local metal detecting milieu whether the whole hoard was in the hands of the authorities. This is a claim that should have been made known to the authorities and not just dismissed as "just one of those whispers that accompanies finds of this type" and investigated. This question was apparently not discussed at the inquest. No evidence was sought that the bronze stains in the pot corresponded to the volume of coins presented to the authorities for example. The old Treasure Trove laws of the time of Edward I were far more exacting than the 1996 Treasure Act. In his seu Commentarius juris Anglicani, the anonymous jurist known as ‘Fleta’ writing about 1290 tells us that in his day:

"The coroner and sheriff, gaining knowledge of the finding of treasure, ought diligently to enquire who were the finders and the nature and amount of treasure, whether any had been carried away and all particulars of those in possession and whether there had been any concealment by anyone. The coroner must then attach all those having any knowledge of the treasure and hold anyone carrying it off until the coming of the justices..."

The current procedure seems a step backward with regard to the policies of Edward I.

vignette: Edward I who one suspects would have known of an effective means of dealing with non-reporting "metal detectorists".
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The onslaught against James Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute in Chicago, continues with a well written and genuinely interesting article by Tom Hundley from the Chicago Tribune which places it firmly in the context of the acquisition by US private collectors (and through them museums) of looted objects from post Gulf War Iraq and pits Cuno's abrasively phrased and controversial views against those of the archaeological conservation lobby:

A war of words has broken out between the two camps. Archeologists
argue that major museums and the wealthy private collectors who often sit on their boards have hastened the destruction of archeological sites by their willingness to pay high prices for objects that have almost certainly been looted. The museum directors and private collectors contend that by rescuing these artifacts from the vicissitudes of the black market they are giving safe shelter to the historical patrimony of all mankind. The high-end trade in illegal antiquities is centered in New York and London, but Chicago has emerged at the vortex of the debate

The article concisely summarises the main arguments of Cuno's recent book and discusses each of them, none too sympathetically. The author points out that:

Earlier this year, Cuno was on almost everyone’s shortlist to become the next director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art after the aristocratic and long-reigning Philippe de Montebello announced that he was stepping down. Although the Met ultimately picked one of its own curators for the post in September, Cuno’s book, which features a photo of the heavily guarded entrance of the Baghdad Museum on the front cover and a ringing endorsement from de Montebello on the back, was seen by some as a not-so-subtle pitch for the job. As it turned out, the controversy that has grown up around book may have hurt his chances.

Let that be a lesson to those who go around attacking archaeologists and conservationists. More here: Loot! Chicago at center of battle between archeologists, collectors. See also Kimberly Alderman's Cultural Property & Archaeology Law Blog.

Photo: Artefact hunters searching at Isin, Iraq, January 2004. From the book "Catastrophe!: The Looting and Destruction of Iraq's Past" (Photo by John M. Russell, Massachusetts College of Art)

Over on Britarch, the Council for British Archaeology's discussion forum, the chairman of Heritage Action suggested continuing the discussion on what a code for ethical collecting of portable antiquities should contain. This was a reaction to the Icklingham illegal metal detecting case discussed here. It was Heritage Action which pointed out that while collectors continue to buy their portable antiquities without a documented provenance it gives "nighthawks" a carte blanche to carry on looting sites for a collectables. In England and Wales there is a Code for Responsible Metal Detecting (but not one for Scotland or Northern Ireland), and antiquities dealers have their weasel-worded "codes of ethics" but nowhere is there the concommitant Code of Responsible Portable Antiquity Collecting. Why is that?

The suggestion had been made before on Britarch, and gained the support of the CBA's director Mike Heyworth, and after a beginning had been made on discussing what it might contain , the topic was quietly dropped. This time there was an immediate reaction to the suggestion from Norwegian metal detectorist Gary Brun who said:

I really don't see how you can make a "Code of Responsible Collecting". People have collected things since the origins of man and covers so many areas. I think it would cause a huge backlash and is a very difficult road you are trying to walk on.

That, apparently, was the end of the discussion among British archaeologists of the idea that collectors of portable antiquities can and should be establishing some sort of code of responsible portable antiquity collecting.

Why, actually, after more than a decade of "outreach" and encouragement of portable antiquity collecting in England and Wales by the Portable Antiquities Scheme should it be regarded as "a difficult road" to even discuss the creation of such a code and what it might contain? Among archaeologists. Could it be that British archaeologists themselves are totally unclear where they stand on the issue of responsible portable antiquity collection and even what it is? Why might that be?

In the October issue of Münzen Revue (10/08) is an article by Swiss coin dealer Ursula Kampmann described by the ACCG as “a well known friend of the collector, a respected scholar and a professional numismatist” about Eckhard Laufer, who is a police officer in Hessen who is well known for his efforts to stem trafficking in illicit antiquities. The article is entitled “Die eigentlichen Plünderer sind die Sammler”: Polizeioberkommissar Eckhard Laufer und sein Kampf gegen das Böse. While one would have thought that European dealers would welcome efforts of the state in stemming the criminality which gets the trade such a lot of bad press these days, the text seems to me essentially to be a personal attack on Major Laufer. It is disturbing to see law-abiding continental coin collectors/dealers reacting to the increasing scrutiny which the antiquities market is attracting in the same manner as the American dealers and collectors (who as we have seen tend to substitute personal attack for proper discussion of the real issues).

I like the meatier sound of the German term "Raubgrabung" which is more descriptive than the ill defined term “looting” used in the English-speaking world.

Photo: The Nebra Skydisc, a looted object retrieved by police before it could be sold to a private collector, and thus available now in a public collection for study. The otherwise unthreatened site itself was severely damaged by the nocturnal diggings by "raubgrabbing" metal detector users.

It is not just the opponents of the doctrine of the permanent virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary that are delighted by the news that the court case against Israeli portable antiquities collector and dealer Oded Golan may be "collapsing" as amateur "biblical archaeologist" Hershel Shanks excitedly proclaims.

Many involved in the trade in portable antiquities are probably delighted to learn that demonstrating forgery of unprovenanced antiquities in court is proving to be more difficult than some thought at the onset of this trial three years ago. I imagine also all those who have considerable sums of money tied up in antiquities previously obtained from Mr Golan are also relieved by this news.
Shanks says that the supporters of the authenticity of the whole inscription on the so-called "James Ossuary" have been "vindicated". Not so fast Mr Shanks.
In more than one way, this trial is the antiquitist’s equivalent of the O.J. Simpson trial, the eyes of the world are on it, the scientific evidence presented by the prosecution is being questioned by the lawyers and found faulty. It seems that Judge Aharon Farkash is coming to the conclusion that conviction cannot be beyond reasonable doubt on the basis of the evidence before the court. That does not mean these artefacts are authentic antiquities ‘as described". For collectors and onlookers, serious doubts are sown by a number of other circumstances surrounding this case, other items which it has been revealed were found in the search of Mr Golan’s property. Some of them have been discussed in the media which seems, whether fairly or not, to have made its own mind up about what conclusions may be drawn.

Whether or not the trial is concluded with the accusations unproven, I wonder whether the reputation of Mr Golan as a dealer will recover from the revelations. I am sure though that for many portable antiquity dealers Mr Golan will be heralded as a champion against those who question the trade in unprovenanced portable antiquities.

The importance of the ability of fake antiquities to distort our vision of the past cannot be overstated. While however items are bought in the traditional antiquity trade no-questions-asked manner, it is so easy to slip skillful – and not so skillful - fakes onto the market. Moreover those fakes can be engineered to appeal to certain markets, even to the extent of being created to confirm a certain vision of the past, making them more commercially viable. By these means, as police Major Jonathan Pagis is quoted as saying in the film "The History Merchants: […] Another Type of Trustworthy (na'aman ocher)": "Antiquities looters tear pages from the book of our history", but, he says a person who forges an artefact: "adds to them pages that read what he wants them to read."

This is another area in which the antiquities trade is responsible for doing severe damage to our knowledge of the past. There are many examples of this from numismatics and other types of portable antiquity collecting. Oscar White Muscarella writes of the damaging effects of what he calls "Bazaar archaeology". David Gill and Christopher Chippendale draw attention to the effects of the antiquities market and the collectors’ demand for Cycladic sculptures on the creation of a whole new genre of pseudo-antique art. The title of the film "another type of trustworthy" is entirely apposite to the evidential value of unprovenanced artefacts for the study of the past. Why in such circumstances should a collector not be interested in knowing precisely where the artefact he wants to buy comes from and how the vendor obtained it?

Oscar White Muscarella The Lie Became Great: the forgery of ancient near eastern cultures. Brill (Studies in the art and archaeology of antiquity 978 90 5693 041 7.

Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 1993. "Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures." American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601-59.

Photo: the so-called "James Ossuary": just clandestinely excavated or clandestinely excavated and then altered?

It is notable that the article on this blog on the illegal metal detecting at illegal metal detecting in Suffolk (Icklingham) has been receiving a lot of 'hits' especially from across the Atlantic. In that post, I give a link to a thread on a metal detecting forum as the source of the information I report. When I visited this forum this morning, it seems that the whole thread had been removed. Not just the post to which I referred, but all the other posts (some two dozen posts) connected with the discussion of this incident. Readers of this blog will not be able to follow my link to see the flow of the discussion on this topic. Now what was it that the forum moderators wish to hide from outsiders by this?

The whole presentation of UK "metal detecting" by the pro-collecting lobby relies on a pars pro toto approach. There are a number of people in the milieu of exemplary standards who are highlighted by both the hobby and the PAS. It is they to whom journalists writing a story are directed, it is they that are depicted as 'calling the shots'. This public face is not at all an accurate representation of the hobbyists as a whole. As in the collecting and trade in portable antiquities in general, the hidden hobby should be taken into account to get the full picture.

The standard approach of the hobbyist is to assure the world that "nighthawks are not real metal detectorists" ("do not confuse us with them, we detest these thieves with metal detectors as much as you do"). Thus the thread deleted from the "metal detecting" forum contained the standard "oh how could they, those naughty boys" and "these boys are a minority that gets our hobby a bad name" stuff. That is what UK "detectorists" are expected to say; its the official line. Not all contributors to that thread however towed the official line, they said things that some "detectorists" would rather not have said out aloud. Outsiders could see and draw their own conclusions. Those conclusions may not reflect the picture "detectorists" want to propagate of their hobby. So the thread was deleted.

What is interesting is the reaction of those who wish the outside world to have a rosy-spectacled perception of "metal detecting" and the PAS. As is usual in the entire pro-collecting lobby, instead of arguing the case and showing that those not towing the party line (challenging the mantras) were wrong, they simply censored the awkward words. The persons in their midst speaking out of turn were silenced by deletion of their statements containing uncomfortable facts. This is, to my eyes, a tacit admission that the awkward words were too close to the truth. A truth that not only the speaker believes. The metal detecting community is not only closing its eyes and ears to criticism of the clear abuses which come from outside, but also reacts quickly to silence any hint of criticism from within. To manipulate the picture that its own members are projecting about the hobby.

The US dealers' lobby have the nerve to call the critics of the portable antiquities market "totalitarian". Let them look also to the activities of their fellow collectors.

Has the institution of the Portable Antiquities Scheme really reduced the looting of archaeological sites for collectables ? (see my comments on Derek Fincham’s recent article here). The Oxford Archaeology survey of the extent of this problem seems to have hit (entirely foreseeable) problems in gathering data and has seriously overrun its original deadline. Until these results are available for detailed scrutiny, discussion on the metal detecting forums around a recent news item are revealing.

The East Anglian Daily Times reports that farmer John Browning of Icklingham in Suffolk in southeastern England has had his fields targeted three times in the past five days by trespassing night time metal detectorists looking for portable antiquities. He says that over the years at least 50 people have been caught illegally metal detecting on his land and penalised but believes more than 100 incidents have gone unpunished.

“Earlier this year three men were fined for visiting the site equipped to steal. They were spotted on the site by Mr Browning who was using a special nightscope. Ricky McCabe, 34, David Miller, 38, and Alan Chapman, 37, all from Chadwell St Mary, each admitted going to a field equipped to steal. All three were ordered to pay £250 in costs, McCabe and Miller fined £250 and Chapman fined £500 when they appeared before a judge at Ipswich Crown Court in March."

Mr Browning is of course the farmer who was robbed by the metal detectorists who found the items known as the Icklingham Bronzes (now in Shelby White’s collecting in the US). The mega-bucks the stolen and illegally exported bronzes fetched on the US market mean that metal detectorists have been turning up at this site regularly. Icklingham is a scheduled site. Mr Browning is a responsible landowner, concerned about the archaeological heritage his land holds, and will not permit artefact hunting on his land anyway. So driven by self-interest, the thought of exciting discoveries and profits, some of these “unsung heroes of the UK’s heritage” go out at night without his permission. Mr Browning has taken to devoting a large amount of nocturnal time searching for these illegal metal detectorists and catching them at it, with some success. Heritage Action has suggested it is Mr Brown who is more deserving of the title ‘heritage hero’ than metal detector users.

Mr Brown’s problems with these people is however clearly the visible tip of a more insidious iceberg. As a knowledgable local metal detectorist remarked on a detecting forum:
Trouble is, it is not just Mr. Browning's farm there that has the problem. Neighbouring land, land all around that area is regularly targeted, it is not far from West Stow, Mildenhall, etc. Hawkers go all over there. It is just that Mr. Browning is on a mission with them, and is constantly trying to catch them with all sorts of equipment etc. Good on him, but that is why you hear about more convictions with him and his land. That wouldn't stop it on the surrounding fields and land all around that part of Suffolk.
This suggests that the problem is more widespread in the area. (I wonder whether she reported this to the Oxford Nighthawking survey?)

A few days ago I mentioned that Norman Smith, the organizer of the rally at which the Stixwould coins were found had on one of the forums made some additional comments on illegal metal detecting. This seems an apposite time to draw attention to them. He wrote:

MY PARTING COMMENT ON THIS SUBJECT, WHICH I MAKE IN FULL KNOWLEDGE THAT ARCHAEOLOGISTS VISIT THIS SITE, IS THAT DURING THE OXFORD ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT ON NIGHTHAWKING I VISITED LONDON ON TWO OCCASIONS AT MY OWN EXPENSE TO DEFEND THIS WONDERFUL HOBBY OF OURS AND DURING THE DISCUSSIONS ON THE CODE OF PACTICE FOR RALLIES DID THE SAME THING, BUT WHEN I SHOUTED FROM THE ROOFTOPS THAT DISHONEST METAL DETECTING WAS ALMOST NON EXISTENT I SHOWED THE GREATEST OF NAIIVETY, AND IT IS OBVIOUS THAT, ALTHOUGH SUCH ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES HAVE DEMINISHED ON SCHEDULED SITES THE PROBLEM OF NIGHTHAWKING IS STILL A MAJOR CHALLENGE, AND THE HARDWORK OF THOUSANDS OF HONEST, GENUINE BLOKES WHO DETECT REGULARLY IS BEING UNDERMINED BY DISHONEST, IMMORAL THIEVING b******s, WHO LIVE OFF THE BACKS OF THE OF THE MAJORITY WHO ARE THE "GOOD GUYS". THE PROBLEM IS WE ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND DO NOWT ABOUT IT . (punctuation and spelling original, emphasis mine)

In its comments on this article, Heritage Action points out that in numerical terms the 150 illegal detectorists which Mr Browning reports have been on his land are actually 1.5% of the 10 000 metal detectorists there are thought to be in the UK. That is just one farm in one village. The three men sentenced in March had travelled from the other side of another county to be there that night. The Suffolk lady metal detectorist says “land all around that area is regularly targeted”. We have seen that as at Icklingham, when items of value (such as Treasure) are found, trespassing illegal metal detecting is especially likely to take place (as was surmised at Stixwould). Not all of some Treasure finds are recovered by the Treasure unit in England and Wales (see the allegations about Cold Brayfield here). Each year now 600-700 Treasure items are reported in England and Wales alone. How many of those sites when they become known through the grapevine which the Oxford Nighthawking survey has shown to exist are subsequently visited at night by illegal artefact hunters trying to find more? How many of them are successful in making off with finds that could have been associated with the original, properly reported, ones? I do not know, but my feeling is that it’s a lot more than just “1,5% of all metal detector users in the united Kingdom".

So it is that as Heritage Action’s Heritage Journal notes:

Lootings from the four corners of the world end up in polished walnut cabinets in Ohio and everyone's blameless. And in the case of Britain the route leads from the criminal chapter (and the much larger unethical and conservation-blind) chapters of a hobby for heroes straight to American collecting zeroes.

(The mention of Ohio is apparently a reference to US collector John Rieske’s aggressive eaction to what Heritage Action was saying earlier about this issue). While the international antiquities market continues not only to tolerate but encourage trade in totally pedigree-less and undocumented artefacts, it will continue to act as a major motor of this looting.

see also:
Browning, J. 1995, ‘A Layman’s attempt to precipitate change in domestic and international ‘heritage’ laws’, in: TubbK.W. (eds) Antiquities Trade or Betrayed, Legal, Ethical and Conservation Issues, London (Archtype), 145-9.

Photo: REAL heritage hero John Browning, (from East Anglian Daily Times)

Wayne Sayles in a comment on “Looting matters” claims:

Rhetoric on cultural property lies at the outer edge of reality and most collectors and archaeologists get along quite well together. The fringe is where the problems lie . From the archaeologist's perspective, the ACCG may seem to be at that fringe, but from the collector's perspective, there would be no need for an ACCG if not for the aggression of radical archaeologists. Finding a way back to the center is, however, an arduous and painful task.

This term "radical" used so frequently by Wayne Sayles and those in his thrall is, I guess, supposed to in some way demean. The term however has had an established use in discussions of archaeological theory for many years before Sayles adopted it to mean something else. David Gill has discussed it here, and I have touched on it here. Gill suggests that the term used by Sayles et al. should be replaced by the term ‘archaeologists with integrity’.

Sayles insists conservation is on the “fringes” of modern archaeology. That is news to me; I really think he has the order around the wrong way. Concerns about the conservation of the archaeological resource are central to modern archaeology, they are central to the way much of professional archaeology is organized today (in most European countries as part of the planning process). They are central to all the codes of ethics/ practice which actually define the discipline.

It is those who are oblivious of that which are on the fringes of the discipline.

Calgary coin dealer Robert Kokotailo adduces evidence that the figures for the cost of entering artefacts on the PAS database being discussed in the UK on the eve of the deliberations on the funding and future of the PAS were "incomplete and thus miss-leading". The figures however were published on the PAS website (as an answer to comments - including from myself - about the high costs of precisely this aspect of the Scheme) by the member of PAS staff most closely involved with the day-to-day running of the PAS database. I am therefore amazed that the Canadian should dismiss this information so easily. Mr Kokotailo ignores what the PAS webpage says and calculates the cost of PAS mitigation by crudely dividing the total sum of money the Scheme receives by the number of items recorded in the database . By these means he determines that the true cost to the 62 million non-collecting members of the British public of ensuring that at least something is saved from the erosive hobby of a few thousand is "$42.64 US" ( Ł27.35 ) per item. Now if we add that up for the several hundred or several thousand archaeological items in the personal artefact collections of something like ten thousand "metal detectorists" alone, current policies on artefact hunting and collecting are costing its citizens a lot of money (apart from the high costs of Treasure awards). But the PAS itself insists the costs are much lower.

Californian coin dealer and ACCG officer Dave Welsh excitedly calls the use of these figures in discussions of the cost of the PAS "an outrageous example of duplicity and mendacity".

Disturbingly Kokotailo and Welsh (and the ACCG) are among those who promote the adoption of a scheme like the PAS by all the countries which are the "sources" of the coins they and many other north American antiquity dealers sell by the bucketload. On their Unidroit-L forum, they present it as the "only" solution to the looting problem that they would contemplate co-operating with - but only if "the archaeologists" (of the world) set it up for them (see discussions there in November 2007 when they saw no problem with the figures of the costings). How much money for heritage protection do these dealers and collectors think the global community should be using for subsidising their hobby and businesses? And why?

Vignette: Calgary is also famous for its Stampede.

The Cold Brayfield (Treasure case 2006/T631) hoard has inadvertantly become somewhat of a touchstone of the differences between portable antiquity collectors (interested on getting their hands on the loot) and archaeologists (interested in having the information about context preserved, if not the context – site – itself).

Its finders have unexpectedly found themselves some transatlantic allies, Washington lawyer Peter Tompa (President of the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild) and ACCG Executive Director and author Wayne Sayles have leapt to defend them, stopping just short of accusing several of us of totalitarian attitudes before finally blurting out: "Context Lost -- So What?" not recognising the importance the Treasure Act places on preserving information about that context. On the Firth of Forth there is even an archaeologist who seems to mistake David Gill’s blog for mine and there insists these finders should be given the benefit of the doubt, for some reason he canna' believe that they dug the coins out the way they themselves are quoted in the newspapers admitting. Hmmm.

As we have discussed in several posts: here , here, here, here, and here, the hoard was by all accounts dug out from well below plough level by two metal detector users in the darkness. As I have noted, this is in direct contravention of the guidelines of both the Code for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales and the guidelines of the Code of Practice to the 1996 Treasure Act. As a result, by the time the FLO got there a "due to the fact that the find had already been removed prior to investigation a stratigraphical relationship could not be established" between these finds and the associated archaeological deposits.

There seems to be some doubt however in local circles when and how this hoard was actually discovered. Norwegian "metal detectorist" Gary Brun pointed us to the website of the Central Searchers, a group that seems in some way to have been involved; correspondence with the website owners revealed a different version of the story. I was told last week by Gillian Evans of the Central Searchers metal detecting group (whose husband had been involved in the recovery) that instead of the "day before" Julian Watters started his two metre by two metre mattock-dug hole, the nocturnal discovery took place a week before Julian Watters visited the site. If that is the case why was Mr Watters given the impression it was at a later time? What happened in Cold Brayfield between the date of discovery according to Mrs Evans, and the date reported to Mr Watters? As described here earlier, any attempt to log on to the forum of that group to try and determine any other details have however been frustrated.

Furthermore, how many coins were actually recovered in the night from this hoard? We know 1456 went to the BM. If however one has Google Earth installed and downloads this file: “Sites in Buckinghamshire” we are told something else. Somebody, presumably a fellow metal detectorist is alleging that the "bloke who found [the] hoard has another 3000 coins". This of course may be just spiteful gossip without any foundation, but certainly this is the sort of allegation that needs investigating by those responsible for dealing with Treasure and the truth of which should have been investigated at the Coroner's inquest. Was, however the coroner informed of this? I hope to be able to obtain a transcript of part of the documentation to find out. So far though it seems my request for information is apparently being passed around the office like a hot potato.

Of course if the British Museum report on the hoard contained a drawing of the pot and its volume stated and the extent of the bronze stains on the inside of the vessel indicated, then it would be clearer how many coins had been originally deposited in the pot - rather a key point one would have thought. To describe the BM report on this find that someone was kind enough to send to me as "sketchy" would be an understatment. The ceramics from the original find and Mr Watters' investigation are dismissed in four lines, there is no reference to any pottery figures. The coins are not fully reported, neither is any distinction made between the two groups (Phillips/Plasom- Watters) of finds. It apparently took the BM two years to write this, and its absence is the reason why Mr Watters has not (he tells me) been able to write up the results of his four-square metre investigation. [I do not think the report I have seen contains anything a FLO with the experience of Mr Watters could not have worked out himself without sending the material to the BM and waiting two years for a reply.]

So my question to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (still) is: "should the finders be eligible for the full reward, or should from an archaeological point of view we not be urging that the Secretary of State exercise his discretion under paragraph 79 (viii and - see below - possibly iv) of the Treasure Act Code of Practice and section 10(7) of the Treasure Act?" If instead of being an archaeologist, I was a "metal detectorist" asking the PAS this question, what answer would I receive? Or is this simply a question that the PAS will not actually answer despite being engaged in "archaeological outreach" to the public, and engaged in promoting "best practice by finders"? I think the public has a right to know.

I recently addressed these questions to the two FLOs involved (twice). All I received in reply was some generally dismissive statement of "the sort of whispers that accompanies this sort of find". Surely the whole point of having a Treasure Unit, and a coroner's inquest is to sort out the true facts behind the "whispers" so we have reliable archaeological information about the context of such finds? If the system is not working and despite everything, all we are getting for the money and effort expended on this is distorted by poor reporting, half-truths and nagging doubts about the contexts and contents, the whole process is a bit pointless/

Inspired by Gary Brun's posting to several blogs and forums that information about the illusive Cold Brayfield hoard discovery can be found on the Central Searchers metal detectorists' website, like myself last week, a colleague tried to register... well, that was a few days ago. Just now I received this from him:

I finally had a message saying my Central Searchers registration had been accepted but when I logged on I was greeted with a message saying "You have been banned from this forum." I wonder what they've got against someone called "Marcus" ?! Maybe it was considered too upmarket. I should have chosen 'Kevin'. Or maybe something like 'Hoiker'. (You can publish this message if you wish!)

Now, right there on the homepage it says right among the homely violet: "Please feel free to log on and register on our metal detecting forum you do not have to be a club member to register." Well, there's an invitation to blog readers, log on and see what "unsung heroes of the British heritage" discuss among themselves. I am sure we'd all like to know what exactly Gillian and Richard Evans, and all those Central Searchers people have got to hide from a new member called "Marcus" before he has even had a look at what they have on offer. What strange behaviour. What kind of a community is it that bans somebody the moment they accept their registration? Take a look - though you will have to be a member to get onto the special secret one where you get a password that is changed and you are forbidden to share with non-members, so they cannot see what part of the heritage is being taken away by these secretive folk.

As many collectors of portable antiquities are aware, in the United Kingdom, there is a system of generous finacial rewards for those who surrender so-called Treasure items to the Crown. Some people have argued that such a system should be applied globally (see my earlier discussion of Derek Fincham's suggestions in this regard). Fewer of them mention the fact that there is alongside this a certificate which can be awarded to those public spirited finders who forgo the reward. I wonder what the forthcoming Treasure reports will reveal about the frequency with which that has occurred since this was instituted? It was reported that there were about thirty a year, but there does not seem to be very much publicity around the issue.

From time to time we hear of various ideas to prevent the looting of archaeological sites for collectables for the antiquities market. Those from the pro-collecting lobby usually have the same suggestions on the way "we" (that is the archaeological Other) can stop looting, which is to sell them (private collectors) the artefacts which they want and which (they say) the archaeologists do not. We've examined one of these here on this blog.

Now Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeological Review has the same sort of idea. According to him, "the archaeological establishment’s principal suggestion that will supposedly stop the looting is—well, not to put too fine a point on it—stupid. “Don’t buy looted antiquities” is the strategy". Why is it "stupid"? Because "the only effect of this policy is to send the looted objects to buyers who will put the loot in their living rooms instead of in museums". Well, I rather thought that private collectors were not being excluded from any of the archaeological finger-wagging. Collectors certainly do not see themselves as not being under the scrutiny of those they label "radical archaeologists". Furthermore, Shanks describes the editorial policies of some journals not to enhance the value of looted items in the market by allowing their publication in those journals as "even stupider" and labels it an "the avert-the-eyes strategy". He seems not to regognise that it is a policy which has its eyes firmly on the legitimising effects of scholarly interest in a looted item.

So what is Shanks' idea of how to deal with the pronblem? Well, somewhat incongruously, it is not only legitimising the market, but taking part in it.
Compete with the looters. Professional archaeologists should
professionally excavate areas subject to looting—and fund their excavations by selling the “loot.”

Wow. There is more, he goes on to surmise:

much of this professionally excavated loot will end up in museums. Indeed, museums will be some of the prime purchasers—with money provided by their benefactors.

That's it. The Grand Plan. So let me get this right, archaeologists dig unthreatened sites in order to sell off bits of the excavation archive, so they can dig more sites to sell off their excvation archives? Heard of Preservation of Archaeological Remains in Situ, Mr Shanks? In what way is digging everything up now going to save anything for future generations to find their own past?

So do these archaeo-loot peddlars make a paper photographic and digital record of the stratigraphical record, or just collect finds? In the Shanks Model does the paper and digital archive get sold off too? So what use are the paper records without the finds that accompany them as the excavation archive? In what away is the "knowledge" generated by such excavations curated, in what way are its results made available for review and re-assessment? What about the soil samples, animal bones, slag samples? Do they get sold or are they left in the museum?

Then the nice complete pots and coins and metal goodies are put up for sale (where, how?), but the museums can "buy them back" to complete the archive... so this means the next excavations are being done for money the archaeologists got from museums. So in that case, why cannot the museums and their benefactors finance proper excavations in the first place and retain the whole archive from the dismantling of an archaeological site in the search for knowledge? Or does Shanks imagine that the best stuff will go to wealthier foreign museums and the more affordable grot stays in the source country?

I wonder just what kind of archaeology this "Biblical Archaeology" is, what is it trying to find and how? It seems to me that Mr Shanks sees archaeology as basically fulfilling the same "museum filling" role as in the days of Botta, Layard and Belzoni. Who are the archaeologists Mr Shanks imagines will be doing this work, putting current dealers with their unprovenanced stock out of work, and to which codes of ethics will they be adhering? That of the ADA?

Over on the Cultural Property Observer blog, I find a comment posted by a "Voz [Earl]" which reads as follows:

In my reply to Paul Barford's post on the subject (which apparently will never see the light of day on his blog) I asked whether he thought these coins would have ever been found if not for detectorists. Is there any reason to believe this midden would have been recognized and excavated? Thanks to the UK system we will at least be able to glean some information from this hoard. Paul cited various paragraphs from the applicable legal code to which I replied:"In reading through the paragraphs you cite, I'm once again impressed with the UK system. They have obviously taken human nature into consideration, i.e., 'you may receive a greater reward for finds left intact,' 'archaeologists are to keep original finder appraised as to progress with subsequent excavation,' etc.
It seems to me that the best thing in this regard would be for archaeologists to actively publicize these provisions to detectorist groups--tout them as incentives for cooperation. How about a simple presentation with real-world scenarios...'you're out digging and you see XYZ, you're excited and want to quickly uncover the find to see what it is, but the best thing you can do at this point is to stop digging and contact such and such person/agency--don't worry, you will not lose whatever you are entitled to by law and will be kept appraised of what is eventually uncovered. By doing this you will help to preserve much valuable information.' As long as the detectorists feel secure that they aren't going to lose the just rewards of their labor and good fortune, I believe they would be eager to cooperate.

Well, first of all as far as I can see, no such comment posted on this blog ever reached me, so I am unable to test the truth of the assertion that it was sent. Certainly it is not a comment that I would have rejected. It illustrates well the extent of the misconceptions there are in the US collecting world* concerning the Treasure Act and the workings of the PAS which this milieu holds up as a model for the rest of the world to follow. So you'd expect them to at least understand how it works and what it is for.

Voz Earl muddles the legislation of the Act itself and the Code of Practice (which is guidance not law). With regard his last paragraph, I wonder what precisely he thinks the PAS has been doing for eleven years of outreach!! Surely every artefact hunter with a metal detector in England, Wales and Northern Ireland should make it their business to read and understand the Treasure Act and accompanying Codes of Practice, but yes the PAS is there to help them understand their rights and obligations. Just a phone call or email away. If metal detectorists ignore their responsibilities under the Treasure Act, then its certainly not for a want of being told what they are.

Voz asks whether "these coins would have ever been found if not for detectorists. Is there any reason to believe this midden would have been recognized and excavated? Thanks to the UK system we will at least be able to glean some information from this hoard." Hmm. Was a midden found? I don't know. I know that an archaeologist was called out into the middle of a muddy field on a December day to dig a 2x2m trench where some time before two guys with a metal detector had hoiked out 1400 coins in the dark from a hole they say was "a metre deep". The trench was an intervention in an unthreatened archaeological site to investigate whether anything remained of the context of discovery of the hoard made by the "metal detectorists". It had not. The intervention was not designed as a full-scale investigation of the site itself, which if its a metre down is not under any immediate threat - except, now, from other treasure hunters.

Mr Earl seems unaware of the fact that before this hoard was hoiked out, the site was known to be a site producing Roman finds, it was therefore (I presume) already on the region's Historic Environment Record. There had also already been other metal detected finds from it, some of which [including late Roman bronze coins of the same date as in the hoard] were previously examined (I understand) in the British Museum. In such a situation then, what possible justification is there for continued "metal detecting" of that site? Regardless of what is and what is not reported, what reason can we give for allowing a known Roman site to be exploited by a few individuals as a source of collectables for entertainment and profit? I do not think we can even claim that what was happening here was "producing information" We knew it was a Roman site, we knew it had fourth century occupation, we knew there were coins there. I suspect that there was not even plotting of findspots of any previous finds going on by these "detectorists" (putting the detailed findspots on a large scale Ordnance Survey map would of course have revealed which side of the county boundary they were on). As I said earlier, British "metal detectorists" target "productive sites", and what could be more "productive" of collectables for entertainment or profit than a known Roman site?

Voz reckons that "due to the UK (sic) system, we will at least be able to glean some information from this hoard". Well, firstly a bunch of coins is just a bunch of coins; as archaeological evidence, hoiked out of context as here they are rendered virtually useless. No "stratigraphic context could be established". So what about this mythical "numismatic context" Californian coin dealer Dave Welsh reckons 'no-questions-asked' coin collectors are "saving from the archaeologists"? Well, it just so happens that into my hands has fallen the coin report of this hoard (I imagine interested coin collectors could also obtain a copy from the British Museum). Its pretty disappointing as a piece of numismatic scholarship and I hope its not typical of the sort of thing being churned out as 'preservation by documentation' of Treasure finds at tax-payers' expense. The question is whether if these coins were scattered among US and UK 'heap-of-loose-coins-on-my-table' collectors, we would get any more information from them.

I really am at a loss for words concerning the main post of Cultural Property Observer. The title ("Context Lost -- So What?") really says it all.

*Voz [I am unclear if that's his real name] Earl is a coin collector known to me from previous exchange on Unidroit-L and other forums. We rarely see eye-to-eye.

It has just been announced that on Saturday, January 10, 2009, Professor Colin Renfrew will receive the SAFE Beacon Award at a Lecture and Reception co-sponsored by SAFE/(Saving Antiquities for Everyone) and the Penn Cultural Heritage Center.
I expect that in coming weeks we will hear some grumbling about this from the dealers and collectors among the pro-collecting lobbyists. They are apparently unable to grasp such a complex issue as “conservation” without it being reduced to a simple mantra-like formula naming a single individual as the source of all their problems. One of these formulae is calling Renfrew-L discussion list.

Colin Renfrew is one of Britain’s leading archaeologists, and if he can take time from all his many other activities to speak out and act against the market in illicit antiquities, one may pose the question why it is the majority of his British fellows stay quiet and do very little. Let us hope that in the near future more archaeologists will take a closer look into the shadows of portable antiquity collecting and then follow the light of the SAFE beacon.

A hundred and twenty years ago, the British Museum purchased a papyrus scroll containing the text of the one of the best known and complete examples of the Theban recension of the prt m hrw 'Coming Forth by Day' (the “Book of the Dead”). Today the text and figures from this colourful manuscript are one of the more popular versions available in the Internet. The scroll had been deposited (as the names and titles in the document proclaim) in the tomb of one Ani, who seems to have lived in the nineteenth dynasty, and we may presume this tomb was situated somewhere in the vast cemeteries across the Nile from Luxor. Ani was an important man about town: “royal scribe veritable, scribe and accountant of the divine revenues of all the gods”, “Governor of the granary of the lords of Abydos, scribe of the divine properties of the lords of Thebes”. He had the ear of Pharoah (“beloved of the lord of the North and South") and was married to Thuthu ("the lady of the house, the chantress [qematet] of Amun"). Apart from this, we know little else about Ani, we cannot name the pharaoh he served, or say which of the Theban tombs of the Nobles was his. All we have is the scroll now thousands of kilometers away from Thebes, arbitrarily cut up by Budge and mounted in a museum in damp London to be gawped at briefly by thousands of tourists on their way to stare at the mummies before they are enticed into the gift shop.

It is reported that the scroll was light coloured and flexible when bought. It darkened soon afterwards – suggesting it had come from a hermetically sealed and therefore probably unrobbed tomb. Some time before 1888 the tomb was entered and the scroll taken and sold to collectors. But no other items of Ani’s funerary equipment seem to have been noted to have surfaced on the market. It seems highly unlikely that the scroll was the only potential collectable in the burial of such an official, so we may presume that other items were taken by those who had found his tomb. So where is the rest of Ani’s tomb equipment? Is it still scattered unrecogised between numerous unpublished and ephemeral personal artefact collections in both hemispheres? Or did these ‘curios’ enter the possession of other nineteenth century pleasure seeking European travellers of the Nile and were lost to disinterest soon after they returned to Europe?

The sixth chapter of Ani’s papyrus contains the shabti-formula:

Illuminate the Osiris Ani, true of voice, o shabti. If it is reckoned or accounted to do any work which is done in the underworld, to destroy
obstacles there from under someone, or to plow the fields, or to fill the
irrigation canals, or to transport sand [of the east to the west, I will do it, truly, when called there.]

But where are the figurines to which this spell* refers? Like the scroll, they were supposed to lie eternally in the tomb alongside the mummy. In whose collections are they? Are they still able to work for Ani and his lady in the afterworld, or has their scattering between ephemeral personal collections left the couple there without help? If they were items taken from Native American graves, collectors could not treat them so cavalierly as they do the things sold daily on eBay, at least not in the US. Despite their claims that possession of no-questions-asked portable antiquities helps them to "get a deeper understanding of other cultures", individuals unconcerned about the origins of these curios of a foreign past are probably totally oblivious to the intended function of the objects they hoard in their homes and their deep significance to the original makers and owners. In a way, it is a pity that the Curse of the Pharoah is just a journalists' myth.

*actually this formula (From Digital Egypt) is read from the mid Eighteenth Dynasty Papyrus of Nu

Wayne Sayles has reacted to the comments made in answer to his recent "Goose-stepping" blog post. He clearly misunderstands that it is precisely because of his position as Executive Director of the most prominent ancient coin collectors' lobby group worldwide, and precisely because he has undoubted achievements in other areas of numismatic erudition (and yes, I even have at least one of his books), that the constant name-calling he addresses to those who discuss the ethics of collecting of undocumented archaeological artefacts is so unbecoming and disappointing. He writes:

Until there is an overture from someone truly representative of the archaeological community, and not a nut case with a personal agenda, there will be continued animosity between that community and ancient coin collectors. A sad situation for sure. I have said repeatedly that I would welcome serious and substantive discussions that would lead to a unified position on cultural property management, I will not, however, deal with gadflies that have no authority, no plan of action and no ability to think beyond the box of their own ideology. The failure of the archaeological community to embrace any such discussions is a validation of their rigid ideological position which will be satisfied only by the total demise of private collecting. Expect a fight!

well, I suggest that the ACCG could send a representative (such as the Chairperson of the International Affairs Committee) to a group which represents a wider range of academic thought in archaeology (such as the Council for British Archaeology's Britarch discussion group) to present the collectors' case to other archaeologists. Oh, wait a minute, they did that...

Certainly there is an obvious conflict of interests between those who want to see better protection of the world's archaeological resources from exploitation by looters as a source of collectables and those who defend their "right" to collect unlimited ammounts of undocumented archaeological artefacts no-questions-asked. Certainly if that community aggressively defends its position, a "fight" for public opinion is inevitable. The question is, will the representatives of collectors fight in the same ring as the conservationists, or will dodge outside the ropes to sit in a dark corner shouting rude names and coarse challenges at their opponents while avoiding engaging them in a proper exchange in the ring? Let the audience of such a sorry spectacle decide whether they support the man in the ring, or the man who declines to enter it and engage in a fair exchange of blows.

It is also obvious that a person who sits outside the arena merely throwing insults at those who step in is unlikely to be seen by those "truly representative of the archaeological community" to be an attractive partner to engage in "serious and substantive discussions". Obviously it is the "pleasure" of the Board of Directors of the ACCG and all the members it represents to have an Executive Director whose immoderate public behaviour continues to frustrate any attempt at an equitable resolution of the conflict of interests between "heap of loose artefact on a table" collecting in the US and the interests of preservation of the world's archaeological heritage. Its a mystery to me how US and other "ancient coin collectors" expect to be taken seriously while they stand behind such behavior from their representives.

vignette: sumo wrestlers unafraid to face each other - no name-calling here.

Over the past few days we have seen here (in the discussion of Treasure case 2006/T631, Cold Brayfield) the problems of determining what has happened in the case of Treasure finds made by artefact hunters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland when the only information that is available comes from the newspapers.

Section 12 of the 1996 Treasure Act requires that the elected representatives of the British people should be kept informed about what Treasure finds have been taken from the archaeological record and which of them deposited in public collections by the production of a Report on the Operation of the Act:

“As soon as reasonably practicable after each anniversary of the coming into force of this section, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report on the operation of this Act in the preceding year”.

Well, the Act came into force 24 September 1997, but apparently the last (seventh) Report came out in January 2007. It covers however the period 1 Jan – 31 Dec 2004. So when would it be "convenient" for the Secretary of State to inform us about what was happening in this area in 2005, 2006, and 2007? Will we now have to wait until some time in the middle of 2010 or even later to find out what happened for example at Cold Brayfield in December two years ago, despite the fact that the inquest was last week and this concerns administrative decisions being made about the treatment of the common heritage? Why cannot this information be made available online as each situation unfolds?

US coin dealer Wayne Sayles from the Ozark mountains in Missouri wishes to join in the discussion of the ethics of artefact hunting with metal detectors in the United Kingdom.

Discussions recently with the pro-collecting milieu milieu however have tended to repeatedly confirm Godwin’s Law. Just recently, in blogs and discussion lists we have seen conservationists called "Heritage Brownshirts", compared to "Josef Goebbels", accused of promoting an “archeologie uber alles” ideology and so on. The moment anyone questions this, the culprit protests innocence, claims he was "misunderstood". Anyhow, now the discussion of the report of a court reporter of what was revealed by a Coroner’s inquest (in Milton Keynes in the UK) has by some twisted stretch of the imagination been likened by Sayles on his blog (“Goose stepping” Friday, October 31, 2008, 9:35 AM) to a certain military parade marching step (chillingly portrayed here in one of the more revealing sequences from Riefenstahl’s classic film Triumph der Willens ). I am sure though Sayles will protest that he did not "really" expect people to think he was comparing us to the Nazis.

The whole text seems to me to be an attempt to dress up another personal attack in a pseudo-philosophical dressing. What Sayles labels as “Archaeological Goose-stepping” is in fact perfectly legitimate debate, the sort which Sayles and his ACCG pals would like to quash, dominate and force out of the public arena. Realising that they cannot in fact achieve this by reasoned argument, the best they can come up with is continual personal insult and ridicule, as we see again in this latest blog post.

What actually is wrong with discussing the ethics of an activity – or the way in which it is carried out – whether or not it is legal? In the UK (and many other countries) it was perfectly legal for many years to drive around at high speeds with your kids on the back seats of the family car unrestrained by any seat belts let alone any special car seats. Perfectly legal, but given the number of serious injuries caused annually, and in hindsight, what do we think now about the ethics of parents who did this when they could have fitted seat-belts and kids' car seats well before they were constrained to do so by law? One could multiply such cases. The “it’s legal innit? argument really does not apply to everything, so why should it apply to the exploitation of the archaeological record for collectables for people like Mr Sayles to make a profit selling? He writes:

Mr. Barford's post is equally preposterous. He jumps on the fact that the coins were retrieved in the dark. Would it have been better if the finders waited til morning when the sun had made its cycle?

Although the ancients you admire so much were unaware of this, the Earth revolves around the Sun Mr Sayles. Notions change. Yes, it seems pretty obvious that it would have been better to do any observation and recording of archaeological context in conditions of better visibility. Maybe some of that so-called "numismatic context" (whatever that is) was in some mysterious way preserved from "destruction by the archaeologists" (sic) by hoiking it out in the dark before they came, but I doubt that any archaeological context was. Sayles continues:

Now really, what would you do if you were metal detecting (legally) and found a few coins late in the day? Then you found more, and more, and more! Would you stop retrieving them because the sun had set?

Well, the question is irrelevant as I am not an artefact hunter. Despite Roger Bland having gone over to the US three times, and actually having met and discussed these issues with Wayne Sayles on at least one of these occasions, the Executive Director of the ACCG clearly does not understand anything about how the 1996 Treasure Act is intended to work. Like many collectors in the US he seems to be under the mistaken impression that the Act and its accompanying Code of Practice were instituted to “get the goodies”, get the things out of the ground and into the showcases and salerooms. If he had even the slightest knowledge of the history behind the writing of this Act, Sayles would know that its primary purpose is to preserve archaeological information about those finds. The finds themselves the state could buy back for market price on eBay, the whole point of the reporting process is to allow the context to be properly investigated and recorded. Not by shovel-wielding pensioners grubbing around madly in the dark, but as part of a controlled investigation by trained personnel, preferably in daylight.

There is nothing “preposterous” in an English archaeologist desiring that English “metal detectorists” treat the English archaeological heritage with respect. What is preposterous, and extremely so, is a coin dealer in his big house deep in the Ozark mountains sees this as in any way comparable to “goose stepping”.

Thursday, 27 November 2008

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