Detailed pictures of many of the items are already up on the Staffordshire Hoard website, allowing scholars and the public to view the items. "It's not our intent to write the definitive report. Let the whole world work on it." Such an approach is unprecedented, believes Dr Leahy.
Too right it is! So basically then the sole archaeological involvement is just to help treasure hunters get the goodies out of the ground and collect their reward and put some pictures on the Internet for any amateur theorist to make up stories about? No, "an archaeological discovery is not made until the time of its publication" that is a fundamental axiom of the discipline. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is paid for out of the public purse to ensure best practice among "finders". Well, not publishing this hoard in full is not best practice. It is a cop-out. It is a scam. I think the British Museum should issue an offcial statement confirming its intentions.If the museum(s) acquiring this assemblage are not going to fulfill that obligation, then why not do what portable antiquity dealers have been urging all along, keep a few bits, put the rest on eBay then and send it out in the world to private collectors in the hope that some of them will have the decency to publish their pieces properly? Why not, Mr MacGregor? What is the point of getting all this glittery stuff for archaeological study if you are not going to realise the potential of the material? That is just like excavating a site, gathering up lots of pottery and bone and saying the job is done. The job is not done, the project not finished until a proper report is produced. How on earth can we expect artefact hunters and collectors to listen to us pontificating about "best practice" when we do not exhibit it ourselves?
The Sutton Hoo objects were published in full detail, it took the BM forty years to do it, the publication was too lavish (too heavy) and too expensive. Some of the objects in this "Staffordshire" hoard look to me as if they may well have links with the "Sutton Hoo workshops" (and maybe the latter were not East Anglian products after all?). So matching the patterns of the hatching on the gold foils (documented in the Sutton Hoo reports) may well prove significant. But not if the only access the scholarly world has to these objects is through some photos, however nice, on the Internet.
No, there has to be a proper definitive report published of this "Staffordshire hoard" with proper report of the 2009 excavations, with a description of each item every bit as detailed as that of the Sutton Hoo objects and at least some attempt at pulling together what it all means. Anything less would be a scandal.
And if the UK cannot afford to do the job properly, then perhaps the UK should think about these policies which allow people to go out looking for treasures which we have not got the resources to deal with. This problem can only get worse, not better.
ADDENDUM: I have this (27.09.09) evening received a private message from Roger Bland saying he was disappointed that I discuss this news item, because there are plans to produce a full report, and Kevin Leahy was somehow misquoted by the BBC. Phew. Additional piquancy is however added to this that there is a newsfeed on the PAS website and the BBC article to which I refer has for several hours been at the top of the list - on their own website. Well, anyone interested in the early medieval period will be interested to hear what the publication plans really are for this extraordinary find. Let's hope it is as detailed as the Sutton Hoo one, appears in a fraction of the time, is easier to carry (!) and a lot cheaper.
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4 comments:
O dear, Paul, another pile of misleading garbage on your blog. Why do you never take the trouble to check your facts before rushing into print commenting on a misquotation of something Kevin Leahy said? And a misquotation or partial quotation by an organisation - the BBC - that decided to publicise the findspot of the hoard, thus laying it open to the risk of damage.
OF COURSE THE PARTNERS INVOLVED IN THE HOARD WILL WISH TO PUBLISH IT, but we hope to do slightly different way from in the past. The model up to now has been to produce a large volume which often appears many years after the discovery and is priced so high that very few copies are printed.
Thanks to the outstanding effort of Dr Leahy the Portable Antiquities Scheme has already published on www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk a provisional handlist of the hoard which runs to more than a hundred pages, as well as a substantial discussion of the hoard by Dr Leahy, together with some 600 images. It is unprecedented to make so much information available about a major discovery so quickly - the hoard was still in the ground 11 weeks ago and the last objects were only discovered three weeks ago.
Working with other experts in the field, we hope that Dr Leahy will be able to develop his provisional handlist into a detailed catalogue and we hope other scholars will be able to contribute essays on other aspects of the hoard and its context and historical background. These are very early days, and the final decision on how to proceed will rest with all the partners in the find and not with one organisation alone, but to say that there are no plans to publish the hoard is completely incorrect.
Thank you for that comment. Well, I am not sure how "misleading" it is, I give a link to my source - Kevin Leahy is quoted verbatim by the BBC as representing the PAS. A link to the very same article furthermore actually appears on the top of the list of newsfeeds on the PAS website today.
I read it, reported it and reacted to it. I am not sure what "facts" I am expected to check on a Sunday morning. But thank you for clarifying so quickly.
I mentioned and praised the Staffordshire Hoard website here, just a few posts earlier. Its a wonderful idea. But it is not a publication.
"but to say that there are no plans to publish the hoard is completely incorrect". I am extremely relieved to hear that. What I read this morning made me very upset. But this news was not made up by me. If the BBC made a mess of reporting this, then the BM press office should take it up with them on Monday morning and get them to publish a correction, because the text they produced is simply misleading. Not just me, but everybody (every metal detectorist included) who reads it.
But that aside, I am sure you'd be the first to admit that there is a problem that you are now getting several hundred "Treasure" finds being reported, including huge groups of coins (like the "Near Shrewsbury" hoard discussed here last week) and yet, in general, publication of them has by no means kept up with the pace of discovery. Where are all the publications of the coin hoards reported under the Treasure Act since 1996? The prehistoric metalwork hoards? You yourself were quoted [http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/blogs/news/2009/02/12/find-iron-age-treasure-wins-award ]
on the occasion of the award for the excavation of the Chiselden cauldrons that this is a "weakness" of the British Treasure system, that there are no adequate rescources for the follow up investigation of the findspots, for conservation and (thus I assume) publication.
I imagine most museums who acquire these objects feel it is enough to stick them in a secure showcase with a nice spotlight turned on them to make them shine and that's their job done, and we just do not seem to be getting the publications. This has always been a problem of course, even before the Treasure Act. My point was (and I am sure you will agree) that there is more to "doing archaeology" than finding "shiny stuff", but at the moment British archaeology - this branch of it - is giving out the opposite impression, getting the shiny stuff but then not really using it except as a museum crowd-pleaser.
It would be useful if, to make the point that the reason why we accumulate "the shiny stuff" is to study it, an appendix to the next Treasure Report could give a full bibliography of all the Treasures from England, Wales and Northern Ireland that have actually been published since 1996 and how many publications are known to be forthcoming.
[Reply to Roger Bland part two]
...known to be forthcoming. So even if this one - truly exceptional (for the moment) - gets a full publication, that still leaves the issue of the other several hundred which I suspect have not. Now I "happen to know" that there is a vast crowd of transatlantic coin collectors who take a great interest in what coins are actually in those hoards bought at such great cost to the UK public purse. How can one answer them? We have had just three volumes of "Coin Hoards from Roman Britain" ( X - XII) published since the Treasure Act, and that contains only a fraction of the hoards that have passed through the Treasure unit. So what about the rest? (I KNOW it is not the Treasure Unit's responsibility to publish them, but the museums that acquire them). Surely there should be some kind of mechanism set in place however to encourage and facilitate this, and logically it should get as much funding as buying the goodies.
There is a vast imbalance here that a metal detectorist can get a seven figure (let us say) sum just for picking up the phone to report a Treasure, and yet we cannot allocate more than a fraction of that for a whole team of archaeologists to carry out the follow up work, and then we have to scrimp and save to do that and work out how to arrange the conservation and so on. That is just crazy (and a very uneven "partnership").
Anyway, it is nice to hear that Dr Leahy was misquoted by the BBC and that there will be a report to read - I look forward to seeing it.
"pile of misleading garbage"? I hope you don't talk like that to metal detectorists and coin collectors !
:>)
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