In her Fugitive Ink piece ('Heritage under the hammer: the Crosby Garrett Helmet (re)visited') Barendina Smedley writes of certain "serious ethical questions regarding the way in which the Crosby Garrett helmet has been treated from the moment it was found right up until the moment the hammer comes down at Christie’s" and mentioned that they have not only been raised in her own blog but also here: "but ignored entirely, as far as I can see, by the mainstream media. "This is true. The question is why.
Right from the publication of the Christie's catalogue, before the media even picked up the story, I raised a question nobody wants to address properly: how in the circumstances we actually can be certain it was discovered where the seller says it was, unaccompanied by anything else (UPDATE: see now above). The only reaction to that has been a dismissive reply by the British Museum's Roger Bland who implied it was my intellectual facilities that were the problem rather than gaps in the story and the unusual form and condition of the object as presented to the PAS. I am gratified to see however that a lone blogger has the guts to acknowledge that this question has not been at all satisfactorily answered yet and now refers to it as "The so-called Crosby Garrett Roman Helmet". True there have also been attempts by list members to discuss this issue on the BAJRFed Forum run by pro-collecting archaeologist David Connolly, but the latter apparently fears open discussion and honest opinions which clash with his own rose-tinted views on artefact hunting and censors out anything like that.
The griffin on the top was questioned, and now it turns out not just by me. Yet in general its not something talked about loudly. Interestingly during the sale yesterday a new photo appeared (at least one I'd not recalled seeing before) and it showed the right side in better detail (on hindsight I see it was a bigger version of this one - it is also used on page 17 of today's Guardian). From this view, it is clear that the base of the griffin does not have the same curvature as the peak of the hat and has been set forward by the person doing the reconstruction to hide that fact when looked at from the front. That's why the figure seems to pitch forward so much. The significance of this is that anyone who has done any metalworking will know, if the two pieces of metal are not in proper contact, they never could have been securely soldered to the top of that cap (as reconstructed). Yet "solder" is what it is claimed was between these two pieces. Likewise nobody has addressed the loop at the front with the "ribbon" it is supposed to have held dangling in front of the rider's face. These are among the problems with the reconstruction we see and the description and interpretation of the object as supplied to the public by Christie's and the British Museum. They are totally sidestepped. Why?
Over on BAJR we can see that censorship will not make the problems raised by this find go away. One person wrote something that was then censored:
[...] I have it on good authority that at least one recognised Roman military specialist is of the strictly private opinion that the helmet has [AUP edit - and sadly that how it will have to remain - remember remember that allegations must be run past me first before posting on BAJR... stops me from getting angry emails/telephone calls, letters etc. ta muchly] .....might explain why it's in quite such good condition, not what you'd expect from something dug out of a soggy and probably slightly acidic Cumbrian field....."Has" what, Mr Connolly? What is the opinion this unnamed somebody expressed that has to be hidden on an archaeological forum in Britain? Who do you expect those "angry phone calls" from? What are you British archaeologists afraid of, somebody expressing an opinion? Bah! Crawl away and hide and hope nobody asks you awkward questions you cannot answer!
Then we have an odd story about the discovery, a young unemployed man has been travelling 77 km from his home to a field on grassland where he has never found anything, and for seven years he's been going back again and again (and part of that time acording to Roger Bland he was a student and then he's been unemployed - so one would think short of cash for the petrol). Nobody in PAS has questioned that strange behaviour in public. I would have thought that when provenance plays such a key role in this sale, that is something that really needs to be explained by more than a shrug of the shoulders. Another landowner in Crosby Garrett claims the "same people" have been metal detecting their land too.
We do not learn the full story of how and why the PAS became involved. We are not told why they stayed involved as it became clearer that all was not well with what was happening here. I am surprised that they allowed Christie's to use its name in their marketing of this object. They appear to be trying to keep quiet about the issues this find (and their involvement in its subsequent treatment) raise. This is a shame because of course it is their function to not only address these issues, but keep the public informed about them ("public outreach" is more than just filling databases with numbers of pretty metal detected finds). There could be a real public discussion about what lessons we can learn from this find and what happened (is happening for the story is not over yet) and surely the Portable Antiquities Scheme should be leading it, not hiding. I do not recall seeing any kind of statement about it from the CBA yet. Though there have been two tweets from Mike Heyworth:
"Hard to see how sale of Crosby garret Roman helmet for £2m+ to a private collector is in the public interest. We need a review of the law".
"Good piece by Maev Kennedy in The Guardian on the Crosby Garrett helmet sale today: http://is.gd/fPQwI. I agree with Sally!" [ah, but did Sally Worrell say what the Guardian says she did, or did she phrase it like the Independent does? More censorship?].
Let me quote again what Barendina Smedley an observer who admits to being to some extent on the sidelines of these debates has said about this:
It would be nice to think that l’affaire Crosby Garrett might focus enough light on some murky practices regarding metal detecting, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Christie’s and possibly the Treasure Act of 1996 to make everyone clean up their act. Alas, though, the mainstream media don’t seem interested in moving beyond that well-worn ‘save it for the nation’ script, [...].It seems to me it is not just the media.
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