Heritage action this week speak out about the UK's 'Charity Artefact Hunting Rally' Racket (Heritage Journal, '
Another day, another metal detecting racketracket',
25/11/2017). Even the Freemasons and Rotary Clubs are being roped in to support this disrespectable and (for the finder/collectors lucrative) practice which turns our archaeological heritage into trophy pocket-lining for the artefact grabbers:
Rallies, whatever their form and whoever proposes them and whether for charity or not, are likely to damage heritage [...] almost everything that is ever found, despite belonging to the farmer and totalling millions of pounds a year, will go to neither the farmer nor the charity but will be pocketed by the detectorists.
Vignette: Metal detecting 'friend' of Gloucester Severn Rotary Club, he says he's
raising money for 'cancer research' while filling his pockets with
archaeology
Any chance of a larger picture Paul, people can't see that £150 shirt I'm wearing, paid for by selling artefacts on the black market!
ReplyDeleteSteve Taylor, folks. As I say, only a face-saving PART of the money raised by collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record ever goes to 'charity' - the rest and the artefacts themselves disappear into the greedy pockets of the bragging artefact hunters as here.
ReplyDeleteThe comment also emphasises the narcissistic self-centred basis of the hobby of artefact collecting itself. Here showing off the 150-quid shirt is a trophy as much as the latest difficult-to-find 'well-saved hammie' which is showed off by its finder to admiring fellows at at club meetings
ReplyDelete