A blog commenting on various aspects of the private collecting and trade in archaeological artefacts today and their effect on the archaeological record.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Metal Detecting Under the Microscope: the Chortling Finder of Lots
We were talking the other day about the rate artefact hunters in Britain are reporting their finds to the PAS and Mr Pett of the British Museum (though he has yet to come up with any of his own) was doubting the figures used by the Heritage Action Erosion Counter, considering it very unlikely that artefact hunters are finding so many things. Here's a jolly little video by a guy called Ged Dodd which shows a table-full of artefacts all found within twelve months by one metal detectorist. While I do not claim that all (indeed many) of these objects are PAS-recordable, I put it up as an indicator of the sort of finds rates these people can achieve. If Mr Happy Peace-Haven had a Roman villa or Deserted Medieval Village on one of his farms, the finds would be of a different order.
Do you realise that Ged Dodd started a project in 2013 which has lead to the largest collection and identification of Russian flax and hemp bale seals on the planet .. he now assists every museum and Finds Liaison Officer to identify these very important artifacts from the Industrial Revolution .. see the PeaceHavens Project, the existence of which was beyond the capabilities of normal archeology .. and which makes you out to be a bit of a toffee nosed idiot .. .. see https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeaceHavensProject/ http://peacehavens.co.uk/BSINDEX.htm Happy 2016
"Peacehavens" of course being Mr Dodd's own pseudonym... Yes I know about his bales, but that is not the point being made.
His link does not work, so we cannot check just how familiar Mr Dodd is with the Russian language literature on the subject - so his proud claim to know more about this stuff than the Russians cannot be verified.
Readers can look at the video here and decide for themselves who comes over as the idiot - https://youtu.be/JtTODTWgJ14.
I defy Mr Dodd to "write the history of the individual mills" from these decontexctualised objects, used alone. Show us what you can do with this material.
I see that Mr Dodd's Peacehavens Project has now identified over 6400 Russian flax bale seals for metal detectorists, Finds Liaison Officers, Museums and History Projects .... his personal database of Flax Mills now exceeds 145 pages of extensive knowledge of flax mills in the North of England ... he rewrote the books with knowledge derived from the real world ... If you want to know about Russian flax bale seals and have them properly identified then he is your man ... see http://www.peacehavens.co.uk please note although this site explains how you can identify a dozen different types of Russian bale seals .. the main section ex-directory for the use of real academics only ... and is being updated daily with the finding and identifying of new seals ... and I apologise to Paul Barford for being so good at my job that I became the world's formost authority on Russian flax bale seals ... while he is still in the world of "I went to Uni so I know what I am talking about" ... NOT ...
Since young Mr Barford posted his anti metal detecting post he may be amazed to see that Mr Dodd has become the world's foremost authority on Russian flax bale seals with over 6,400 identified for metal detectorists, museums, find laison officers and historical societies.... as for videos there are over a 1000 on utube showing the exact location of every find made by Mr Dodd in the UK and abroad. and we are talking 100's of thousand .. he was very good at it ... Should you want a proper identification of a Russian flax bale seal please send photos, back and front, that's obverse and reverse for Mr Barford, to the PeaceHavens Project facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeaceHavensProject/ regards Ged Dodd, Project Director, The PeaceHavens Project http://www.peacehavens.co.uk
John Sullivan, 'Russian Cloth Seals in Britain: A Guide to Identification, Usage and Anglo-Russian Trade in the 18th and 19th Centuries' Published by Oxbow Books 2012. Mr Dodd has a derivative object-centred amateur website (the reputed "the main section ex-directory" [sic]), Sullivan published a monograph that starts where Dodd ends, and puts the seals and their characteristics into the broader historical and economic context.
British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.
"coiney" - a term I use for private collector of dug up ancient coins, particularly a member of the Moneta-L forum or the ACCG
"heap-of-artefacts-on-a-table-collecting" the term rather speaks for itself, an accumulation of loose artefacts with no attempt to link each item with documented origins. Most often used to refer to metal detectorists (ice-cream tubs-full) and ancient coin collectors (Roman coins sold in aggregated bulk lots)
"tekkie" - metal detectorist/metal detecting (a form of artefact hunting)
CDE - Collection-Driven Exploitation of archaeological sites
CPAC - Cultural Property Advisory Committee [US]
FLO - Finds Liaison Officer (post in the PAS)
HER - Historic Environment Record [UK]
IAPN - International Association of Professional Numismatists
MENA - Middle East and North Africa
PAS - Portable Antiquities Scheme
PNG - Professional Numismatists' Guild
UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNESCO 1970 Convention - Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property
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5 comments:
Do you realise that Ged Dodd started a project in 2013 which has lead to the largest collection and identification of Russian flax and hemp bale seals on the planet .. he now assists every museum and Finds Liaison Officer to identify these very important artifacts from the Industrial Revolution .. see the PeaceHavens Project, the existence of which was beyond the capabilities of normal archeology .. and which makes you out to be a bit of a toffee nosed idiot .. .. see https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeaceHavensProject/
http://peacehavens.co.uk/BSINDEX.htm
Happy 2016
"Peacehavens" of course being Mr Dodd's own pseudonym... Yes I know about his bales, but that is not the point being made.
His link does not work, so we cannot check just how familiar Mr Dodd is with the Russian language literature on the subject - so his proud claim to know more about this stuff than the Russians cannot be verified.
Readers can look at the video here and decide for themselves who comes over as the idiot - https://youtu.be/JtTODTWgJ14.
I defy Mr Dodd to "write the history of the individual mills" from these decontexctualised objects, used alone. Show us what you can do with this material.
I see that Mr Dodd's Peacehavens Project has now identified over 6400 Russian flax bale seals for metal detectorists, Finds Liaison Officers, Museums and History Projects .... his personal database of Flax Mills now exceeds 145 pages of extensive knowledge of flax mills in the North of England ... he rewrote the books with knowledge derived from the real world ... If you want to know about Russian flax bale seals and have them properly identified then he is your man ... see http://www.peacehavens.co.uk
please note although this site explains how you can identify a dozen different types of Russian bale seals .. the main section ex-directory for the use of real academics only ... and is being updated daily with the finding and identifying of new seals ... and I apologise to Paul Barford for being so good at my job that I became the world's formost authority on Russian flax bale seals ... while he is still in the world of "I went to Uni so I know what I am talking about" ... NOT ...
Since young Mr Barford posted his anti metal detecting post he may be amazed to see that Mr Dodd has become the world's foremost authority on Russian flax bale seals with over 6,400 identified for metal detectorists, museums, find laison officers and historical societies.... as for videos there are over a 1000 on utube showing the exact location of every find made by Mr Dodd in the UK and abroad. and we are talking 100's of thousand .. he was very good at it ... Should you want a proper identification of a Russian flax bale seal please send photos, back and front, that's obverse and reverse for Mr Barford, to the PeaceHavens Project facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PeaceHavensProject/
regards
Ged Dodd,
Project Director,
The PeaceHavens Project
http://www.peacehavens.co.uk
John Sullivan, 'Russian Cloth Seals in Britain: A Guide to Identification, Usage and Anglo-Russian Trade in the 18th and 19th Centuries' Published by Oxbow Books 2012. Mr Dodd has a derivative object-centred amateur website (the reputed "the main section ex-directory" [sic]), Sullivan published a monograph that starts where Dodd ends, and puts the seals and their characteristics into the broader historical and economic context.
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