No Paperwork, no Design, no Fettling, no Explanation. The trade in Ukrainian Antiquities

US dealer vikingheritag (on eBay since  17 Feb, 2017 - 2.2K items sold, 97.9% positive Feedback) located in: Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, United States has for sale a: "Viking silver Pendant - cross Kievan Rus 9 century", yours for US $1,750 Buy it now

Found with a metal detector in a farmer's field. This field was inhabited by people during the Viking Age of the 9th century. Found in the ground as a complex - a treasure trove of jewelry. Item from a private collection. Material: silver, Weight: 11.32 grams, There are no defects or cracks.

ah, so you can wear it. If it weren't so damn ugly. It is a crap piece of casting. The outlinesa are blurred and 'soapy', there seems no understanding of the manufactureer of the motif, the interlace is very poorly done, the piece is 'as cast', has not been fettled. In my opinion, looking like that, this is not an ancient piece. "Foud in the ground as a treasdure trove (sic) of jewelry (sic)", in which country, even? A total lack of details which is highly suspicious. This item however was "found by a metal detector in Ukraine", and under the description of a "Viking Belt 9-12 century" is a photo of a diorama of early medieval Kyiv from the Historical museum in Kyiv. And lo and behold, the seller admits under some auctions (here, here [looks like brass to me], and here) that he is (also?) based in "Kiev" [disrespectful RUSSIAN spelling of the name of the Ukrainian capital].

Metal detecting, garnering archaeological artefacts, selling them off and exporting them without the proper permissions is all illegal in Ukraine. Perhaps Vikingheritag thinks it's a good idea to take advantage of the ongoing war to flog off some of Ukraine's archaeology to western collectors, maybe western collectors kid themselves that they are "rescuing" the items they bought. I'd ask both of them, what on earth is so specifically "Viking" about the majority of portable antiquities this guy is handling? Of course nothing. 

To my eye, this looks like a mixture of objects of different origins. there look to be locally metal-detected objects, some of which are in a bad state due to soil conditions, others less so. There are pretty bad fakes masquerading as metal detected finds, there are some that it's difficult to tell from the wuzzy photos which group they should go in, but all are claimed to be detector finds. 

The mixture in one sales offer of these three groups are pretty typical for Ukrainian sellers. This is what happened to Bulgaria, back in the day they were a massive source of artefacts, then the fakes began to creep in as the sites began to get depleted and less productve, then the fakes started predominating.  And then the whole trade collapsed, leaving gutted sites. Then the searchers shifted briefly to the Balkans... Macedonia ans Serbia mostly, now these areas are prolific fake-producers (coins in particular). Then Ukraine started to be mined, and this is ongoing on a massive scale.