With a compliant British government, Odyssey can expect none of the lawsuits or bad press caused by those pesky Spaniards. [...] Since Britain’s archaeological resource is officially up for grabs to whoever looks for it (as long as they’re not an archaeologist), perhaps Odyssey should establish an onshore operation.Using its massive budget to invest in cutting edge technology that can detect metal over many acres and far beneath the ploughsoil, it could set to work across the countryside, scanning every inch of the nation, revealing to us the wonders of the past, delighting in the hoards of context-less antiquities, and then selling them to us for a profit.I am sure portable antiquity collectors would be only too happy.
A blog commenting on various aspects of the private collecting and trade in archaeological artefacts today and their effect on the archaeological record.
Friday, 13 February 2009
Good Collectors Under the Sea
The 'political archaeology' blog The Assemblage has a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the exploits of Odyssey and its "let's-empty-the-site-onto-the-market-now" arguments for the Victory called a hint for the good collectors of the sea - which I could not resist drawing attention to.
Odyssey to remove all the metallic artefacts from the fields? That's ridiculous, don't you know there's an army of self-appointed volunteers busy doing that already?
ReplyDelete"Before it all rots away" as they say.
And unlike Odyssey they're doing it for the love of history and as a public service, without a thought for the mon... Doh!
You should also know they're mad keen to help in another way. They very often suggest the nighthawking problem could be solved at a stroke if only archaeologists would let them on to sensitive sites and let them remove everything collectable.
I'm confident it would work. I hear Woolworths has adopted a similar approach recently and the incidence of shoplifting has fallen to zero.