Thursday 22 March 2018

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Seizure in Bulgaria


Police in Bulgaria seized more than 90 artifacts on March 15 from an organised group involved in crimes against cultural heritage, the Ministry of Interior said. The objects were obtained via illegal excavations in Bulgaria.  Of the artifacts seized, 85 were coins, which are small, easy to move, and often not subject to the same provenance requirements as antiquities.  Coin dealers and collectors once again are implicated in the looting.

Benches: Present on the Past and the Past of the Future


Thought-provoking post by Heritage Action (includes archaeology of benches)



Tuesday 20 March 2018

The negative market reaction to the very mild diligence guidelines the BATG


The negative market reaction to the very mild diligence guidelines the BATG suggests is noteworthy and shows the limits of voluntary self-regulation by "the market". Strong, clear laws are needed

Metal Detectorist has 'Haul' of Treasure


Debbie King, 'A rare hoard of 2,000 year-old gold coins have (sic) been found in a farmer's field near Chiddingstone' Kent Live 20th March 2018
Ten solid gold coins dating back to the Iron Age have been discovered in a field near Chiddingstone. The rare find was hauled from its 2,000 year-old resting place by a man with a metal detector and has been taken to the British Museum for safe keeping.
The verb is 'hoiked', Ms King, not 'hauled'.
Resident archaeologist at Eden Valley Museum in Edenbridge, Claire Donithorn said the coins were unearthed in October 2016 but their exact location was not being revealed and details kept secret. She said the museum would be launching an appeal to raise part of the £13,000 needed to save the coins for the people of west Kent and the sale's proceeds would be split between their finder and the land's owner. "To find a haul of this size is extremely rare," she said. [...] Out aim is to keep the hoard together and to ensure that it stays in the Valley for us and for future generations." The Eden Valley Museum will need to raise £2000 to secure the coins for the people of west Kent [...] . The museum has already secured grants of more than £11,000 but will need another £2,000 to purchase the coins and provide secure display cabinets.
.

Temple facade at Tel Jokha, Iraq


Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the 2003 invasion of sovereign country Iraq, among other things this led to the looting of many sites across the country, especially in the south. This is the Ur III temple facade destroyed by looters in Umma, Tell Jokha, a site that reportedly is still being looted.


A Conservation Issue


Sudan, the world's last male Northern White Rhino has died. There are two females left of the species. Once their lives end, the species will be lost to this world forever. Poachers are the reason for this. Trophy hunting drives demand, poachers deliver, extinction is forever!
Antiquity collectors should also take the responsibility when the last three preserved archaeological sites in a region are trashed by artefact hunters. 

Monday 19 March 2018

Merryman Challenged


Erin L. Thompson has uploaded her latest article, "Which Public? Whose Interest? Rethinking Merryman’s 'The Public Interest in Cultural Property'" (Art Antiquity and Law 2017). On Twitter sOn Twitter she writes:
'Merryman’s influential 1989 article “The Public Interest in Cultural Property” proposed that all decisions about the fate of cultural artifacts should be based on consideration of a property triad of core values: preservation, truth, and access. My article uses case studies of cultural artifacts to argue for a rejection of Merryman’s values, arguing that they are not universal values but instead prioritize a Western experience of art over the needs and rights of source countries, particularly indigenous cultures. For Merryman, the centrality of the value of preservation “is too obvious to need elaboration.” But he ignores the frequent cases where a source culture creates an object with the intent that it be consumed, deteriorate through exposure, be deliberately destroyed after ceremonial use, or be seen only by a restricted group of people. Merryman’s failure is not just a failure to give proper weight to non-Western points of view about the value of preservation. Merryman has also failed to understand crucial Western attitudes towards preservation and destruction. Westerners also frequently engage in rituals of destruction and concealing. Western law contains many provisions recognizing that we can be harmed by other people seeing certain images, e.g., victims of child pornography can sue viewers for re-traumatizing them. Similarly, under another legal theory of harm, in some situations we can claim compensation for the emotional distress caused by other people seeing images of the suffering of our loved ones, e.g., EMTs circulating gruesome crash scene photos. Next up: the value of truth. Merryman wants cultural heritage objects to be presented as "a genuine relic, speaking truly of its time” The difficulty here is that many of us use cultural artifacts in ways that have very little to do with the way in which they speak about their place and time of origin, and much to do with our wants and needs in the moment we are looking at them. Most people, most of the time, look at cultural artifacts to imagine what their own lives could or should be like – as a prompt for thinking, as a means of dreaming, as a source of aesthetic pleasure unconnected from any idea of artifacts' original use.  Merryman’s last proposed core value is access, by which he means that we should insure that the widest possible public can see cultural heritage objects.  But Merryman means museum access - and the way museums use cultural artifacts can be very different from the ways in which these artifacts are used in their source communities.  Museum use is about looking – not about touching. Museum use is about display, not hiding or burial. Museum use is concerned with objective facts about the past, not about subjective, personal reactions to artifacts. Museum use is about the worship of beauty, but not literally – artworks within them are no longer gods.  I can't give a replacement set of universal values instead of Merryman’s, to make decisions about cultural property neat and easy. Any "universal" values are values only for a very specific “we,” and are valid only if this “we” controls all decision-making.  We can't find solutions that will satisfy everyone. We must embrace solutions that have to leave everyone at least a little angry. We must make cultural heritage policy that accords with the way that people actually use heritage instead of the way a few people wish they would'.

It’s Disturbingly Easy to Buy Iraq’s Archeological Treasures


U.S. forces invaded Iraq 15 years ago this week—and left behind a booming trade in looted artifacts (Sigal Samuel, 'It’s Disturbingly Easy to Buy Iraq’s Archeological Treasures' The Atlantic March 19, 2018)
 After the invasion, thousands of [...] artifacts were taken directly out of the ground at archeological sites. In most cases, their whereabouts are unknown. But experts have noticed an uptick in the availability of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts at online retailers since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Now, anyone with broadband and a bit of spare cash can buy one of these artifacts. It’s likely, however, that at least some of the post-2003 internet wealth of Mesopotamian treasures is actually stolen goods. [...] On the website Live Auctioneers, you can find a stone bull for $50, a clay cylinder seal for $150, a terracotta fragment bearing a god on a chariot for $225, and a large terracotta female idol for $400. On another auction site, Trocadero, a lion-shaped stone amulet is on offer for $250. The point is not that these particular artifacts were looted after the U.S. invasion, but that ancient Mesopotamian objects are very easy to buy online. And it’s extremely hard nowadays to know whether the provenance listed by the seller is accurate—and hence, whether the object has been legally sourced. 
The journalist notes (not quite accurately) that 'a UNESCO Convention requires proper certification for objects excavated and exported after 1970', but (which is perfectly true) that 'auction websites generally don’t require sellers to make this certification available upfront to prospective buyers'.
Both these websites, in their terms of use, forbid users from posting false information, but neither responded to requests for clarifications about how this policy is enforced. Live Auctioneers’ terms prohibit law-breaking, but specify that the site has “no control over the quality, safety, or legality of the items advertised” and cannot guarantee “the truth or accuracy of the listings.” Trocadero notes that it “is not in a position to assume any duty or responsibility to veto reproductions or misrepresentations.” 
The article then discusses fake collecting histories intended to hide the real origins of objects on the market. In the current no-questions-asked antiquities market patronised by careless greedy but gullible souls with more money than moral sense, this is still all-too-easy. People claim, for example, that objects were bought by long-dead grandfathers when in the Middle East and it's been sitting unnoticed at home for two generations. Or the old 'property of a Swiss gentleman who bought it in the 1950s’ ploy. As she says: 'No one can prove otherwise, and no one will be any the wiser'.Oya Topçuoğlu, a lecturer at Northwestern University who specializes in Mesopotamian archaeology is quoted:
In her recent study of Live Auctioneers, Topçuoğlu discovered that the majority of the items listed on the site are being sold out of London, which has long been a hub for trade in Mesopotamian artifacts. But, she explained, it’s very hard to prove that any given item was looted from the National Museum of Iraq, partly because many of the items stolen from the museum’s storage facility hadn’t yet been inventoried and numbered. “None of the things I’ve seen on Live Auctioneers—and I’ve looked at approximately 2,000 seals that were offered over the last 10 years—have museum numbers on them,” she said. “But the other thing is, you’re really limited to what the seller puts up on the website as a photograph. You don’t have the option to turn it around and look at it from every imaginable angle.” Iraqi archeologist Abdulameer Al-Hamdani noted that, whereas you might find artifacts selling for $400 online, the properly documented artifacts he encounters tend to sell for closer to $400,000. It’s not that the cheaper ones are counterfeits; alarmingly, they tend to be real. “These Iraqi antiquities are very cheap because people want to get rid of them,” he said. “Maybe because they don’t have documentation for them.”
There is then some discussion of the damage to Iraq’s archeological sites, looted to provide artefacts for the trade.
“It’s mostly the sites in the south that were damaged in the immediate aftermath of the invasion,” said Elizabeth Stone, an archeologist who used high-resolution satellite imagery to compare the damage to sites right before and after the invasion. Her data showed a sudden “massive devastation:” Of 1,457 southern sites examined, 13 percent had already been looted prior to the invasion, by February 2003—but that proportion rose to 41 percent by the end of the year. Sites containing relics of temples and palaces, like Umma and Umm Al-Aqarib, were far removed from governmental oversight, “so lots of people just went off and dug holes,” she said.
One particular site is discussed, and it is interesting to note the information relating to the 'pay locals a fair wage to stop them looting' model of the so-called 'Global Heritage Alliance' and allied US groups:
Al-Hamdani, a member of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, was working at the Nasariyah Museum in the south when the U.S. invaded. One day he showed up at work to find that Marines had taken over the museum as headquarters. After several tense days, he persuaded them to join him in patrolling the nearby archeological sites. The amount of looting was incalculable. “We don’t know how many artifacts have been looted from there—that’s the hidden story,” he told me, before casually adding, “I myself was able to restore almost 30,000 stolen artifacts from the hands of the looters and smugglers, between 2003 and 2006.” He said he did this by working first with American and then with Italian forces, conducting patrols and raids. But if he was able to restore 30,000 artifacts, how many more thousands must have slipped through his fingers? The looting, Al-Hamdani said, was clearly precipitated by the invasion. The war forced archeologists to stop work at their sites and leave behind hundreds of impoverished locals whom they’d trained and employed as excavators. Desperate and out of work, these locals began to earn an income the only way they knew how: by excavating—and selling their finds. Meanwhile, looters spread the word that a religious fatwa had been issued saying that it was permissible to steal and sell non-Islamic antiquities, especially if the money was used to fund an insurrection against the U.S. This was a lie: No such religious ruling had been issued. To combat the fictional fatwa, Al-Hamdani had to go to the revered Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani and convince him to write a real fatwa forbidding looting from archeological sites.

 Al-Hamdani  suggests that since civilization got its start in Mesopotamia, its archaeological heritage represents the origins not only of Iraqis, but of all people.
Wrecking that, he said, amounts to “looting the memory of humankind.” Yet he was optimistic that his native country will eventually get its stolen treasures back. “The international community,” he said, “wants to help Iraq recover the artifacts.” But Topçuoğlu, who has watched what she suspects are looted Iraqi artifacts get scooped up online for a few bucks a pop, said, I really don’t think we’ll be able to find them.”
Part of the reason is that collectors do not tend to keep any documentation about how they came into possession of any portable antiquities they pocket. A change of attitudes among collectors would make all the difference.

Into whose pockets is the money from these sales going?

Saturday 17 March 2018

UK Detectorists are Not in it for the Munny, Unless they are



"I met the guys who found the Crosby Garret mask and they both metal detect full time, lots and lots of research, lots of door knocking and absolutely no random land digging, they just target known or suspected hot spots based on historical research and have made some fantastic finds, including hoards, swords, etc, enough to make a living."
'Lots and lots of research' translated does not mean 'citizen archaeology' as Bloomsbury would have people believe, it really means locate known and suspected sites and target them to fill their pockets.  Those hoards and swords are 'enough to make a living'.
 

Wednesday 14 March 2018

Ivory, Like Antiquities Laundered by leap-frog Shipping


The antiquities trade operates in a similar manner, actual origins of dodgy objects from weakened source countries are obscured by shipping through several intermediaries: Ivory traffickers can make up to $1.3m for a single shipment. Find out how they get the tusks from Africa and onto the black market in China The Economist (@TheEconomist) 14 marca 2018

Video: the Economist

Metal detectin' in Hi-vis: Look Like an Arkie [UPDATED]


The seven posts in the thread thread 'Civil war battlesites' on a metal detecting forum near you, where the PAS never go, can hardly be said to be epitomes of responsible Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record and best practice (post by chrisbham » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:34 pm) [PS see update, here is the cached version]: 
Hi all, So (sic) I was having a wonder (sic) down a public footpath boarding (sic) my new permission and up walks a guy and asks what I found (sic) etc. I didn't know who he was so stressed I wasn't detecting in that specific area as it wasn't my permission. Long story short, lots of the surround (sic) land is his and he offers me permission for his land (which is packed with REALLY interesting history) and we exchange details, which includes a (sic) undetected civil war battlesite where only he has had a swing himself and found musket balls around. I've found reports online about the battle which from the archaeological report which also states no official metal detecting survey has been completed. Legally am I allowed to detecting on the battlefield field? It's on private land, but is a registered battle site with public foot paths. Besides the legality of it I wouldn't want others seeing me there with a detector and assume it's a free for all so perhaps a hi-vis to look official? Advise? Cheers
Detecting on battlefields... rings a bell, doesn't it? Best practice... ummm....

Another one using archaeological reports to target areas from which to grab artefacts for their collection. How ironic he's worried at drawing attention of other artefact hunters (that's the ones that absolutely cannot read, I guess) to this known site.

UPDATE 16.03.16

If you follow the link I gave you'll now see this:
Information The requested topic does not exist.
The Tekkie thought-police have been active again.I think the idea is to get rid of the incriminating evidence that UKtekkiedom is not actually, really, the nice citizeny-archaeologyish thing that it is incessantly portrayed as, but how telling it is that even the moderators of this hotbed of pretend-responsibility cannot actually spot a dodgy post on their own forum until a helpful archaeoblogger points it out to them. 



Heritage Metal Theft: It’s Time to Challenge and Ask the Right Questions


It's time for all dealers to step up and question the materials that are arriving at their gates; turning a blind eye is not acceptable (Nicola Guest (Director, Alchemy Metals Ltd) 'It’s Time to Challenge and Ask the Right Questions ') that goes for roofing lead as well as metal detected objects.
Even if the seller appears to have a genuine reason for being in possession of the material, don't accept it at face-value, question it. Request a letter of approval from the source of the lead. Hold the materials in quarantine until such confirmation is received. We do this as standard and have never received anything other than support from the sellers of these materials. If the seller questions this process, it's time to call the police.

Tuesday 13 March 2018

Bogdanos and the looters


Col. Matthew Bogdanos (Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, author of "Thieves of Baghdad") will present a free lecture at the Penn Museum this Friday, 16-Mar-2018 at 12:00 pm, in the Penn Museum exploring the Islamic State’s trafficking in looted antiquities: ISIS & Antiquities Trafficking: Al-Qaeda 2.0 Oh well, and a month later I'll be saying what I think about that concept in England. I'll not be in uniform.

MOTB as Propaganda


Jill Hicks-Keeton went to a recent MOTB-related event in a Baptist church ('What the Museum of the Bible Conveys about Biblical Scholarship Behind Church Doors' Religion and Politics March 13, 2018).
The MOTB masquerades as an educational institution, all the while quietly partnering with organizations like Johnston’s Christian Thinkers Society who are able to do the work the MOTB’s official mission statement precludes museum officials from doing directly. What we are left with is a mutually beneficial pseudo-academic partnership. What we are left with is a museum pretending to be something it’s not, an evangelical wolf in scholarly sheep’s clothing—whose officials are more than happy to stand by, and even encourage, slippage around what the aims and claims of biblical scholarship actually are. It is not a pretty picture.
What I do not understand is the apparent US fixation on the theme of text transmission.


Operation to Smuggle Iraqi Artefacts out of the Country.Thwarted



Breaking: Iraq's military intelligence announce that they've thwarted a major operation to smuggle Iraqi artefacts out of the country.
 In a statement, it said that in continuation of its approach to carrying out effective counter-attacks to track out lawbreakers, drug dealers, counterfeiters and smugglers, and to arrest them and bring them to justice, military intelligence officers, in a proactive and courageous operation in cooperation with the economic security in Wasit province, managed to penetrate a gang to smuggle antiquities A smuggling operation for relics and the arrest of smugglers in a tight container. She added that the smugglers were surrounded in the district of Nu'maniyah in Wasit province and the two wheels used in the smuggling operation with the smugglers after hiding the effects in a way that does not raise suspicion, but will not fool the military intelligence officers who were monitoring the movements of smugglers first Powell. She noted that a collection of rare antiquities was found inside the two wheels, including 22 archaeological pieces in the form of rare statues dating back to antiquity, 6 pieces of stones called rare stone and precious stones, " The experts estimated the value of the smuggled effects tens of millions of dollars, and smugglers have been referred to the judiciary in accordance with the provisions of Article 44 / Q Law Antiquities No. 55 of 2002.]\
Lawbreakers, drug dealers, counterfeiters and smugglers, and antiquities dealers. Collector: do you know whose hands your artefacts passed through?

Trump sacks Tillerson as US Secretary of State


Trump sacks Tillerson as secretary of state 
US President Donald Trump has sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, replacing him with the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. [...]  Mr Tillerson, a former chief executive of ExxonMobil, was only appointed to the job just over a year ago. [...] Mr Tillerson was reported to be astonished at how little Mr Trump grasped the basics of foreign policy.  

Monday 12 March 2018

Commonwealth Day



Comment by Rob

UK Heritage Professional, "Raising Conservation Concerns = Bullying"


Benjamin Westwood has an FB avatar figuring a depiction of Europa and the bull from a Greek Red Figure vase (that crystallized from the tears of a captive bezoar goat in the Munich Antiquities Elves magical underground antiquities creation facility from which such things "surface" onto the market). Very apt for an FLO. He comments RESCUE's reposting of the Heritage Action text on PAS failing to discourage archaeological site erosion:
My reply:
Where do you see "bullying" Benjamin? HA raise what seem to me to be perfectly valid questions. Why does PAS so rarely express opposition to the depletion of sites by those who mine the same fields for objects to collect over and over again (especially when it is a site already known on the HER)? Why doesn’t the Code of Practice mention it and the need to do it in a manner that creates a systematic record addressed to the specific conservation needs of that site? Why are archaeologists 'getting comfy with site eroders“? Why do archaeologists backslap artefact hunters at mass, repeated rallies and constantly smile at detectorists as if they approve of what they’re doing when they don’t? Is asking questions like that "bullying", or is it just asking questions that need to be asked about Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record, Benjamin?
In reply to the 'better-than-nothing' minimalism that it seems to me Mr Westwood's apparent lack of concern reflects, I added:
Paul Barford Is it really 'just' the legal framework which determines best practice? Or do you accept that the latter (in most things) goes beyond just doing the mere minimum required by law?
What a rough, uncouth bully am I to ask such questions of a Greek Red-Figure vase lover.

But what a jolly good jape, eh? Merely label as "bullies" those who ask questions of the group you belong to, and thereby label the questions they ask "bullying", and you avoid answering them. Simples. Replace reasoned and informed public discussion by simplistic platitudes, and very soon public debate founders, and the end result is that the whole country rapidly slides into rabid-bonkers Brexit-suicide mode....



PAS to Call in Exorcists?


Заклинателят
A PAS FLO unsuccessfully tried last week to engage the help of the British police to block discussions of heritage issues and archaeological implications involved in Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record. Since that proved to be a fruitless effort, and the 'evil, thieving, lying' preservationists will still not fold under pressure, I have had it suggested to me that the pro-collecting lobby may be considering reaching for stronger measures.

Alternatively, instead of shying away from wider debate about the effects of Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record, perhaps those who are employed to protect it, study it and present the results of their deliberations to the wider public really should be engaging with these issues.


Sunday 11 March 2018

Regulation of Antiquities Market a Must


'Conflict antiquities trafficking affects the development of conflicts and can't be suppressed with measures against particular organisations. To cut illicit flows of antiquities and finances, we need policing and regulation of the conflict antiquities market'



Austria joins ECMD


A detecting organization in Austria has become a member of the ECMD (ecmdeu, 'Austria joins ECMD!' 5 March 2018). The country's artefact hunters will be represented in ECMD by  Netzwerk Geschichte Österreich, a nationwide organisation formed in 2011, which
concentrates its activities on cooperation with Austrian and international archaeologists, organises its own research projects, as well as takes part in those organised by universities, academic institutions etc., and publishes a yearly magazine. It also describes itself as “charitable, independent, innovative and non-political, committed to a sustainable and future-oriented access to the Austrian cultural heritage and preservation of its past.”
ECMD add that 'it is interesting to note that many members of NGÖ are active archaeologists, who hopefully will be valuable allies in promoting and establishing international standards of responsible metal detecting'. They mean artefact hunting. This is not the same as archaeology, so I really do not know what these Austrian colleagues are thinking they are doing.  

 NGÖ is also closely connected to ArchaeoPublica and 10 other cooperative organisations throughout Austria.[...] The organisation is very active in the field of cooperation between metal detectorists and archaeologists and heritage protection, promoting archaeology with countless volunteer activities, supporting the official participation in Austrian historical research and offers a variety of opportunities for active participation to its members.

Saturday 10 March 2018

Questions a FLO Still Cannot Answer?


The FLO local to my family home, or an 'informant' operating on her behalf, was apparently in a Colchester police station on Saturday afternoon making what the officer handling the case called 'allegations' about this blog and this archaeoblogger. I have yet to hear anything concrete about these allegations. From what the PC said, I gather that they may be connected with my post mirroring one by Heritage Action. This concerned PAS staff smiling as they handle finds from erosive Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record while they can be aggressively- inclined towards those that ask questions about what, precisely, they are achieving. Ms Flynn declined to put forward her own take on what we both said about this when invited to do so on 5th March (I also cordially invited her to my seminar just down the road from her on April 11th to discuss it further face to face, she refused). Instead she has apparently decided to try to make archaeological colleagues debating the heritage a police matter (!). I am reminded of an exchange I had just a few months ago with the same young lady where she demonstrated herself to be utterly unable to explain the logic behind what she wrote about portable antiquities. She had a go at making a patronising reply to my request that she address a point I had made, and recognizing that Twitter is not the easiest venue in which to put forward more complex thoughts and reflections (I assumed she had some) I invited her here. I still do. Here is my post from just before Christmas last year: ' Sophie Flynn (Essex FLO) is Invited to Tell me What's What...' PACHI 17th December 2017. I think these are not questions a FLO should leave unanswered. If the Essex FLO is unable to answer a public question, maybe any other of the 34 FLOs paid from the public purse to do proper public outreach on portable antiquities (in which the whole public is a stakeholder) would like to step in and do her job for her. There is plenty of space in the comments below, and I will publish each and every comment from a PAS FLO (past or present) as-written. Any takers?
☺️Here, Sophie, is a space for you. Send me your comments and I will publish them in full. [emoticon] 

Yesterday, Ms Flynn posted on Twitter some fluff about the TV series 'Detectorists' suggesting that the 'star', McKenzie Crook should mention the PAS and how they are there to 'help',

Given that most of the objects they record now come from Collection Driven Exploitation of the finite and fragile archaeological record by artefact hunting metal detectorists, I tweeted her with a perfectly valid question:

Now, I'll give her her dues. Most FLOs would run a mile from such a question from me. They prefer patting tekkies on the head and posting their finds up on Twitter with cutesey texts (any day now we'll have the 'Twelve days of Christmas' finds going up - HOW many "gold rings"?). Anyway, she tried:
19 godzin temu
‘Help’ with the admistration of the Act, ‘help’ people discover more about their local history and heritage, ‘help’ responsible detectorisrs understand the opportunities they can bring to the study of archaeology... the list goes on Paul, but I shan’t bore you [smiley emoticon]

FLOs do not read this blog, so they do not know what position I occupy on precisely these issues. That would explain why an otherwise intelligent girl (I trust) gave such a dumbdown answer. So what is she trying to say...  and does not what she said raise more questions than she answered? I replied in several tweets:
23 minuty temu
Forgive me if I am wrong, but surely the PAS was set up 20 years ago not to deal with Treasure, which the Act establishes goes through other channels, but to deal with NON-Treasure material. Somehow that distinction seems to be lost - with Treasure now being reported twice

Meaning in the Treasure Reports (which is what the Treasure Act requires) and the PAS database, which is extralegal, not in the Act, duplicates effort and information and merely serves to bulk out 'finds reported' numbers. As for her second point...
38 minut temu
W odpowiedzi do There's more to "local heritage and heritage" than a few loose coins pulled out of a field somewhere. We left the object-centric view of the past in about 1870 - PAS promotes a very atavistic 'view of the past', don't you think? Not a boring question - quite a fundamental one.

The third issue is indeed a pretty fundamental one, not only about the terminology, but the loopy ideas hiding behind it...
36 minut temu
W odpowiedzi do What is "responsible", please, about any form of *Collection Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record*? Can looting in Syria, Egypt etc be made "responsible' by installing a PAS-clone in Damascus or Edfu? Or Central America? Fundamental question, have you an answer?

I think she must have, as she apparently has no qualms about working with these people (because she took the job). Will she be bold enough to share it with us?  Then those alleged opportunities which supposedly mitigate the huge damage done:
37 minut temu
W odpowiedzi do What "opportunities" does Collection-Driven Exploitation of the basic body of evidence by rough and ready means (eg carrier bags and wallpaper scrapers in fading light at Lenborough) "bring to the study of" real archaeology? Most metal detected finds are NOT reported, as we all know

So, even the 'opportunities' she (apparently) sees have been offset by a far larger number of missed 'opportunities' and this has been going on for twenty years.  And to conclude, her parting comment
37 minut temu
W odpowiedzi do " I shan’t bore you [emoticon]".I assure you, you will not bore me if you give proper answers to my questions, its the superficial ones which we've all heard mindlessly chanted like a mantra so many times before that are the boring and intellectually bankrupt ones.


adding:
36 minut temu
W odpowiedzi do I invite you to make use of my blog's comments section for a proper reply, no space on Tewitter:

Right, start holding your breath... now. No, don't. She's probably awaiting instructions from Bloomsbury.
.
 
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