Gobby Gossip and Dodgy Photos of Chariot Burial

The National Museum of Wales  

is keeping the exact location in the south 

of the county secret because of its importance. 

The secret site under excavation
Photo: Mike Smith. 

The news was first broken by a Haverfordwest (Pembrokeshire) based newspaper (David Lynch, 'Exclusive The first ever Celtic chariot burial in Wales has been found in a Pembrokeshire field' Western Telegraph 21st November) using photographs supplied by a metal detectorist, and a story based apparently on a bragging interview with him. The next day, it was picked up by the BBC ('Pembrokeshire treasure hunter unearths Celtic chariot', 22 November 2018).

The story goes that there has been a chariot or wagon grave discovered in a Pembrokeshire field by a local metal detectorist ("the Western Telegraph can reveal").  It appears to be at the centre of a complex of features marking a large settlement. The metal detectorist, Mike Smith from Milford Haven, a member of the Pembrokeshire Prospectors, first found some items of Late Iron Age metalwork in February, they comprised elements of horse harness, bronze bridle fittings, a brooch and 'the handle section of tools', some of them with red enamel. In total, 35 fragments of enamelled bronze were found in the field. Several of the ones shown in the photos have been freshly broken - looking at the freshness of the breaks one wonders whether this was indeed plough damage. Anyway, he's had to hand them over to the archaeologists now as they took over the site in June.

Near his original finds, Mike’s detector also recorded the presence of a three-metre piece of metal deep in the ground. Excavation of the site began in June, after Mike had contacted the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff and the Dyfed-Archaeological Trust. After digging down a further 10 inches below Mike’s first finds, the rims of two rusted iron chariot wheels were uncovered.  Mike and the excavation team soon realised what they had uncovered was a Celtic chariot burial, a funeral rite in which a chieftain is buried with his chariot and his horses. [...] “This is unprecedented,” said Mike, “and underneath the chariot there is still the three-metre metal anomaly. If you go by other chariot finds that could be weapons or it could be treasure.” [...]  After a week of digging, the excavation work by the museum and Dyfed Archaeological Trust, partly funded by Cadw, stopped and the chariot was covered back over as the funding for the dig had run out. Excavation work is set to start again next year when funding is available[...].

Geophysical examination of the site showed there was a 12  metre ringditch around the postulated burial. Two other ring ditches were seen nearby and a complex of 'ditches, walls and other features'  Mr Smith is delighted that he 'proved the experts wrong' and brags about his initial specultion being vindicated:

Mike said his original email to the National Museum suggesting he had found a chariot burial was initially laughed at. “What the archaeologists said at the time was because there had never been a find down here before, they didn’t believe it. “The look on their faces when they saw it said it all.” 

This looks very much like the metal detectorist could not keep his gob shut, and leaked "his" discovery to the press. The orginal article contained clues to the location (now edited out, cache now deleted) and an original uncropped photo (by 'Mike Smith') showed some pretty distinctive (!) landmarks from which you can identify the site reasonably quickly. The photo has been removed from the article, but whether it is removed from the Internet is a moot question... Mr Smith, just what is it you think you are doing? It is simply irresponsible to brag to the press such tempting tidbits as

a a three-metre piece of metal deep in the ground. [...] underneath the chariot there is still the three-metre metal anomaly. If you go by other chariot finds that could be weapons or it could be treasure.” 

The Museum weakly tries to say that the site is "legally protected". I have no idea what that means, they have scheduled the site maybe?  I think we know how effective that is a protection and how only a handful of nighthawks have actually been brought to justice for raiding scheduled sites along hadrians' wWall, at caterick, Whitby, Caistor, Bradwell and all the rest. No, this site now needs a security guard posted there all winter to watch it because of this newspaper 'exclusive'. Maybe the Wester Telegraph will finance it (they could run a series of stories about the guard's existential reflections as he spends the night in a field on watch).


The 8 comments to the Western Telegraph article concern the leaking of the location, for example this one:

Happyasapiginsh**. 22nd November 2:30 pm
 It is astounding that WT keeps deleting my posts when they are the ones who printed the photo (supplied by Mike Smith himself) of the team posing with easily identifiable landmarks in the background. It only took me 5 mins to find the location through the clues in this article. Ddraicoch said it perfectly.... "Shhhh let's keep this a SECRET and let the telegraph publish it in the press so it can go worldwide !!!!" I wonder how long before this post is deleted.

Photo: Mike Smith, the detectorist

My attention was drawn to the site by tweets from archaeologists about this photo (captioned: 'The tops of the iron chariot wheels see light for the first time in more than 2,000 years. PICTURE: Mike Smith '), what drew my colleagues attention was not the iron strips but the sagging tape and a bit of a grubby mess on site. But then we note that this is not a photo taken after a cleanup by the archaeologists of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff and the Dyfed-Archaeological Trust - there is no photographic scale, colour scale or north point. This is a photo taken by a guest on somebody else's archaeological project and I am going to guess that it was taken and used without the permission of the director of the project. This is another of those issues that makes some of us cautious about letting detectorists work on archaeological projects, they consider themselves above the ethical concerns of professional archaeology - with the result that we get unprofessional looking material like this being published in the international press. The Western Telegraph is not blameless either.

If I were the archeologist who was doing this project, I'd be livid if a guest took photos showing the site not-at-its-best and published them internationally. I do not know who directed this project, but I hope he had the professional self-respect not to have authorised this use of these photos of his team's work. These articles now mean that in addition to raising resources to deal with what will be a complex series of deposits in the spotlight of publicity, additional security will now have to be in place to protect that site in the interim before the excavation and during the excavation.

A metal detectorist chastises me:

Norman Smith ‏ @deanstreetkid odpowiedzi do @PortantIssues @ajdaubney 

Paul [...] The site would probably have remained undiscovered if not found by the amateur. Can't you give the lad just a tiny bit of credit?

Not really. The point is not to discover site after site that there are no resources to deal with properly when the only threat to them are blokes with metal detectors. Get rid of the free for all that metal detectorists enjoy to engage in collection-driven stripping of the archaeological record and this problem would not exist. How many more chariot burials does this generation need? There's the so-called 'Arras culture ' to keep us busy. How many can we cope with?

I am told Mr Smith is a 'responsible detectorist'. I ask what that 'responsibility' consistes of here. Is the "amateur" now going to cover the huge costs of excavating enough of the site to understand the burial and its context, conserve and store the objects and publish the report that his collecting activities have now provoked? Or is the 'responsible detectorist' now washing his hands of responsibility for the situation he has precipitated? What is "responsible"? Causing an accident and as he makes a getaway to avoid consequences, phoning the ambulance to collect the injured and bodies?