.
One might wonder whether this is in fact some form of artefact created by the sources of information searched by the people contributing to the website. But at the moment, the overall picture is not looking too good. Obviously to improve the image of the hobby there is now nothing for it, but for the "metal detectorists" of the UK (the one's that care about what people and lawmakers think about their hobby) now should get together and contribute a bunch of reports from other areas of Europe and give all those countries with legislations restricting artefact hunting the requisite number of red dots, Austria (the Ray Karl discussion), Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, Czech, Croatia, and for goodness sake, what about Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine? Let us see the artefact hunters and collectors of England and Wales band together and save the honour of the PAS by searching for and reporting to this website information on ongoing looting in all those countries where it is illegal to hunt for artefacts like they do. Or let them admit that maps like this suggest that Britain's lax laws do not prevent archaeological sites being destroyed by looting artefact hunting.
Heritage Action has focussed on the story of the crowdsourced “Looted Heritage” website and what one might infer from the website's portrayal of results on a map:
On the subject of artefact hunting we are told ad nauseam that applying any sort of regulation to the hobby will instantly cause an explosion of nighthawking and that the British laissez faire attitude towards portable antiquities ensures looting is far less here. Not according to this map [...] it doesn’t!
One might wonder whether this is in fact some form of artefact created by the sources of information searched by the people contributing to the website. But at the moment, the overall picture is not looking too good. Obviously to improve the image of the hobby there is now nothing for it, but for the "metal detectorists" of the UK (the one's that care about what people and lawmakers think about their hobby) now should get together and contribute a bunch of reports from other areas of Europe and give all those countries with legislations restricting artefact hunting the requisite number of red dots, Austria (the Ray Karl discussion), Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, Czech, Croatia, and for goodness sake, what about Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine? Let us see the artefact hunters and collectors of England and Wales band together and save the honour of the PAS by searching for and reporting to this website information on ongoing looting in all those countries where it is illegal to hunt for artefacts like they do. Or let them admit that maps like this suggest that Britain's lax laws do not prevent archaeological sites being destroyed by looting artefact hunting.
To submit a report, face-saving UK tekkies can go here (watch your apostrophes).
1 comment:
Yes of course the pattern on the map may be just an artefact created by the particular sources of information selected.
Nevertheless it does highlight something that the Establishment doesn't: there is really no evidence to support the tiresome mantra (repeated by artefact hunters and PAS) that regulation will lead to more looting.
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