Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Should Metal Detecting and Artefact Collecting be Banned?

Readers might have noted that archaeologist Christos Tsirogiannis is quoted in the Deutsche Welle article [Jean Di Marino, 'UK treasure hunters make archeologists see red' Deutsche Welle, 4 Sept 2013] as saying metal detecting (artefact hunting) should be "banned". It is a common accusation of both metal detectorists (and dugup antiquity collectors in general) that all those who question the way these hobbies are done want to "ban our hobby" - which then leads to a "fortress detecting/coiney" mentality. A couple of years back I wrote a text on this, pointing out who actually has/had been saying "metal detecting" should be banned ('Beware of the Bogeyman Banner' Sunday, 27 July 2008). It was a paltry number - to which it would seem we should now add one more [by the way, note how that text ended with a challenge: "Come on. Let's make a full list. Comments invited", and in the intervening five years, not a single name was advanced by those making these sweeping claims].

As for me, the perspicacious reader will have observed that my main gripe is not so much with the hobbies themselves, but the way they are glibly presented almost everywhere you look as less harmful and even socially or archaeologically beneficial. My observations suggest to me that neither artefact hunting (in the UK at least) and artefact collecting (here exemplified by the no-questions-asked ancient coin trade) are anything like what their supporters make them out to be, and this is what this blog sets out to show. The logical extension of this is that, in my own opinion, these hobbies should be regulated in such a manner as to automatically and inescapably become what their proponents claim (falsely) that they already are. They do not need banning, they need to be made less harmful (made part of sustainable management of the resource) and made socially and archaeologically beneficial. Those who claim they already are, and "its just a few bad eggs that spoil it for the rest of us" should have no objection to that whatsoever, should they? We gave trying to do it by persuasion and voluntary means, that did not work, since that is the case, let's try it now through regulation. But then, maybe even then (casus Scotland) will not really work, and the banners perhaps will be shown to have had a point.