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Clearly, there is no accounting for tastes. "Cultural Property Observer" watched ex-wrestler Ric Savage's metal detecting programme "American Digger" and pronounced it "Worth A Watch". He says "I wonder what all the fuss was about", which basically tells us a lot about his ability to act as any kind of "cultural property observer". To judge by their reactions on the forums (see here for example), not many US metal detectorists share the "collectors' rights" lobbyists's taste in TV entertainment. Metal detectorist Dick Stout for example clearly is far more discriminating in his viewing than a coin-collecting Washington lawyer:WHAT WAS I THINKING? Against my better judgement I decided to give the Spike TV show, 'American Diggers', another look last night. Not sure why....maybe I was thinking it couldn't be any worse than the first episode. Boy, was I wrong! What continues to baffle me are the story lines or plots involved. So far they have looked for items miners dropped in Alaska, and last night they were in Detroit, looking for items the auto workers may have lost years ago. Huh? The overacting, the "staged" drama, the "supposed" monetary return on their finds....? Absolutely stupid, and once again I felt embarrassed that I was actually sitting there watching it all. Won't happen again... Hopefully Spike TV will pull the plug on this show, and the faster the better for all of us...
On You Tube, there are already lots of 'promotional' excerpts like this one, showing how the big guy deals with landowners and "permission": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP0j6S9jZMU - real hammy acting.
This is apparently what entertains a coin-dealers' lobboblogger. Note, no mention of "regulation" of American artefact hunters with metal detectors, that's only what the lobboblogger says the US should try to impose on the brown-skinned detectorists of southern Europe instead of dealing with artefact smuggling.
11 comments:
Well, everyone is a critic-- including a self-described metal detecting expert-- who has been at it for three years apparently.
You might note none of his criticisms were leveled at the "morality" of artifact hunting. Instead, he seems to mostly doubt that the material can be found in that condition.
But of course, it depends a lot on soil conditions and environmental conditions. Perhaps colder weather preserves metal better.
Yes, its entertainment, but so what?
And I'm sure Spike TV is grateful for all the notoriety you and your fellows are providing for the show.
Ric rules, no?
Obviously, ideas of what is "entertainment" vary. Some people have time to waste watching mindless drivel, that is not my idea of fruitfully-spent time.
Yes, I think the more members of the public that actually see collectors and artefact hunters presented in this light and think, "goodness, what a load of oiks" the better. These are the people who are going to be more inclined in future to listen to the preservationists and less likely to be supporting the collectors.
I am all for everybody seeing with their own eyes the reality behind the glib assertions of artefact hunters and collectors. It speaks volumes to those with the eyes to see. So I am quite happy for readers of this blog to have a close look at this sort of material (and things like "Cultural Property Observer" and all the rest of the ACCG stuff) and compare what they see there with what I see there. Some will disagree with what I say about you lot, I cannot do anything about that (nor do I really want to), others will see the point I am making. The point is that those who look more deeply, using the links I provide, are thinking about the issues and deciding for themselves how they think we should be treating the archaeological record. And that is the point.
You and your fellow campaigners may prefer your readers not to check out the exact wording of things like the 1970 UNESCO Convention. To take your word for it. Fewer and fewer of them seem willing to do that though, don't they? I prefer mine to look very carefully FOR THEMSELVES. the ACCG can try all the provocation and smear campaigns against their opponents, but when those who are swayed by such tactics are outnumbered by those who have looked into the issues themselves and made their own minds up, you will have lost the battle for public opinion on the manner in which we should be treating the archaeological record.
Three hundred alarmed coineys entered online comments wanting to see coins off the MOU, nearly 19000 people want to see metal detectorists with bad attitudes off the TV. That I find a heartening ratio.
In such circumstances if I were a "cultural property observer" working on behalf of the no-questions-asked dugup antiquity trade, I'd not be loudly trumpeting how much I enjoyed seeing fellow citizens carelessly ripping out artefacts for selling. But I am glad you did, to show on which side you and your fellows are, to show what you represent.
This is chinchillaman1, the creator of the video, you criticize me for the morality of artifact hunting. Unlike Ric, i preserve and restore everything I find and run my own website detailing the history of zed artifacts. Ric does it purely for money. As for the soil conditions, the colder the weather, the faster the metal is inclined to break. As of now i have three years of the hobby under my belt and will continue to search for history. The difference between the show and an everyday digger is what we find, if I found a full canon i would surely give it to a museum, Ric found one, and sold it to a private buyer. Ric doesn't rule, and well, lets face it, i have a large portion of the metal detecting community behind me on this one.
This is chinchillaman1, the creator of the video, you criticize me for the morality of artifact hunting. Unlike Ric, i preserve and restore everything I find and run my own website detailing the history of zed artifacts. Ric does it purely for money. As for the soil conditions, the colder the weather, the faster the metal is inclined to break. As of now i have three years of the hobby under my belt and will continue to search for history. The difference between the show and an everyday digger is what we find, if I found a full canon i would surely give it to a museum, Ric found one, and sold it to a private buyer. Ric doesn't rule, and well, lets face it, i have a large portion of the metal detecting community behind me on this one.
I think if you look, I was not being critical in my post of your video, but using it as an example that even metal detectorists do not consider this dreadful programme "good viewing".
"Chinchillaman", I am glad to hear that you "preserve and restore everything I find". Don't you think however that the collectors who pay good money for the stuff these "Diggers" dig up will "preserve" them in their own collections (and also "restore" them to the same standards if the objects need treatment)? ["restore" them to what? What is the artefact hunter's idea of "restoration" and what is his definition of "conservation"?]
The fundamental point here is not really what happens to the artefacts themselves, but the historic sites they come from. Do you "preserve and restore" the latter by digging into them to hoik out collectables? After you've taken away what collectable items you want, what is left for those who come after you, except holes (albiet - I am sure you will tell me - properly filled in)? You are taking away history from these historic places.
Furthermore, it seems to me that you are not only doing that but decontextualising the artefacts you remove. The ones from three years digging that you proudly show off on your other videos. I could not see any numbers of labels visible on any of them, so how can somebody who comes after you relate a pile of loose artefacts on your table with any catalogue and records you may have as to where each individual piece comes from?
What permanent information do you leave behind you for those interested in researching the same sites (perhaps using different - more subtle methods than your spade) in the future. Or do you think that they are exclusively "your" sites (finders-keepers) to do with as you wish? Obviously tens of thousands armed with metal detectors and spades and driven by such attitudes and not bothering to keep more than minimalistic records is highly destructive of the historic resources of your country, and in no way can be considered "historic preservation".
It is no kind of "preservation" of the full historic values of a dugup historical artefact if there is no documentation allowing it to be linked with a findspot.
In removing historical evidence from sites and not documenting the collection properly, an artefact-digger is not creating from them any kind of meaningful historical resource, but merely an accumulation of show-and-tell geegaws.
That is the problem of "the morality of artifact hunting" when it is directed towards the "me-me, all mine" and not, "me and the information I am gathering for and making available to others". That is the ethos of the Portable Antiquities Scheme over in England, and that is why I say that collectors rights' advocates surely should be clamouring to get one set up in the US before they clamour to get their spades into sites currently protected by legislation (the "Task Force" type people I write about elsewhere here). Why aren't they? What does this suggest to an observer about the ethos of dug-up artefact collecting in the US? Together with "rights" go responsibilities. No?
I can understand where your coming from, the comment was pointed towards Cultural property observer.
This is my response to morality of artifact hunting:
The black swan project uncovered $500,000,000 worth of Spanish treasure 180 miles off shore (off of Portugal) in international waters. Once brought back to the U.S. the Odyssey (exploration ship that carried the finders of that treasure) sailed for the atlantic to search for more ship wrecks in the area. They ran into a storm and needed to dock in spain for supplies. The spanish military immediately descended on the ship, blockading the port, not allowing them to leave. Spain wanted the Gold that they found. Throughout the expedition the team contacted the spanish government to set up a joint dig, so to speak. Spain never replied back. For that fact according to the law of international waters the treasure belonged to the crew that dug it up. After the ship was blockaded, the crew (leaving their boat behind) and spanish government officials returned to the U.S. to have a court battle over who owns the rights to the treasure.
The finders argument:
International waters, no answer from invitation to Spain.
Spains argument: the treasure was part of a battleship known as the Mercedes, one of Spains most important historical vessels.
The divers proved that through markings on the captains silverware and initials on the canon, in accordance to Spains ship registry, that the wreck, wasn't the mercedes but in fact a transport ship.
According to lawyers who reviewed the case there was 0% chance that the divers would lose the trial.
They did. The judge would not explain why except for that " he did not have enough evidence from the divers. " The case was later investigated by the divers and recently documents were released stating that the trial was botched by the government. How? Spain and the US government made a back door deal. The treasure (from the US) in exchange for a set of rare WW2 era Nazi paintings wort only $138 million as opposed to $500 million. The case can never be retried due to the clause of double jeopardy.
Is is moral for the government to use tactics in artifact trade, breaking rules that they themselves created and break the rule of international waters?
Why should spain even get the treasure? Just because there is a stamp that says spain on the coin doesnt mean its theirs.
Why?
The spanish slaughtered many peoples of South America including the Incas, Mayans, and Aztec to get the gold. If the gold should belong to anybody, morally it should be returned to the south american countries from it it came from.
If morality is supposed to come into play when speaking of artifacts and relics then let the government set the example before they enforce it on the people
this is directed towards paul. I dont take history from historical places that no one knows about. I look for places that have been forgotten by history such as old homesites in the northeast, in the middle of the woods miles from civilization. Its not like im taking away things from sites like civil war battle zones. Why should i leave it in the ground for other people to find, so it could be forgotten again? yes i do fill in all of the holes. I look in outhouses (places 100 years ago where people used as the toilet) most times on private property (with permission of course) to extract bottles or stuff that people "threw away" which is the key here. Why would i record the area if its not specific to a certain event in history, granted i know where i found it by just looking at a piece because i remember and i can tell anyone how old it is. There are many treasure hunters. The moment i share a site where bottles are, the next morning there will be 50 people with spades tearing it out. Ive lived through that experience and its not pleasant.
granted I wouldnt dig gettysburg because thats an important site with historical reference, but i would dig an old toilet from 100 years ago which most people would think of even looking in. (by the way the unpleasant aspects have dissipated in the ground through the 100 years but it still does not smell nice)
Chinchillaman gives a long and involved account of the "Black Swan Project" (sic) as:
"This is my response to morality of artifact hunting"
viz...
"Why should spain even get the treasure? Just because there is a stamp that says spain on the coin doesnt mean its theirs".
But that is not at all why the property was judged (still) to belong to Spain. Please read up on something [look up sovereign immunity] before trying to lecture me on it.
The Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes was sunk in 1804, so a bit after the Conquistadors.
Just about every other "fact" you give in the above account is totally and utterly WRONG. So completely wrong that I simply have not the time to go through it and put the record straight.
For starters, the seized ship's name was Ocean Challenge, and it was not abandoned by its crew but released a few days later. Your knowledge of the Law of the Sea with respect to Salvage could do with some brushing up. There is some good stuff on this on Kimberley Alderman's blog.
How can the treasure have been "brought back to the U.S."? and what were the Spanish officials doing "returning" to the US?
Finally I really am not at all sure what your point about "morality" is, it seems basically to be a "two wrongs make a right" argument. But then the wrong here is clearly on the side of the salvage company that tried to take what still is somebody else's property and did everything they could to avoid having to give it back to its rightful owner. Where is the "morality" in that?
"Why should i leave it in the ground for other people to find, so it could be forgotten again?
Its what we call conservation, that's why we do not shoot all the rhinos now (so we can use their horns), or pick all the bluebells (so we can look at them at home now) or cut down all the trees (to make bookshelves and paper now). It is leaving stuff there for other people to find, rather than devastated sites. It is about sustainable management of a resource.
As far as I am concerned, you have pretty dumb archaeological resource preservation legislation over in the States which goes on who now owns the land, rather than the values of what is in it. Nevertheless on BLM land those hundred year old settlements which you dig through looking for collectables would be protected as an archaeological resource, would they not? Are they any less of an archaeological resource because John Doe currently owns the forest that now covers them? Does it mean you can treat them any more cavalierly than a site owned by somebody else? As I said, it is about responsibilities towards the resource.
You seem a bit confused as to what it is I am talking about, it is not about "illustrating the written sources" with dugup objects ("Why would i record the area if its not specific to a certain event in history[?]",and " I wouldnt dig [G]ettysburg because thats an important site with historical reference"). It is about using the digging up of objects from contexts (precisely like the sealed pits you explore as a source of collectables) as an historic resource, as a historic source. That is what I am talking about. The respecting of that principle in the way we treat the resource is what I have in mind talking of "preservation".
"The moment i share a site where bottles are, the next morning there will be 50 people with spades tearing it out. " Ah, the old "nighthawk" argument for not recording. Heard that before.
So when you give your finds to a museum, do you lie about where they come from so the bottle diggers don't come the next morning and loot "your" site? Why do you think it is "yours" anyway, if you found it by looking at old maps and other public records?
Correction: the seized ship was the Ocean Alert
http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=11641
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