UK Metal detectorist Acted "Dishonestly", but Why?

Jones (Treasure hunting
World)

ThePipeline blog has a heritage crime story about the results of a hearing at Hereford Justice Centre that reveals more aboutBritish metal detectorists than they appear to recognise (ThePipeLine, 'Metal Deetectorist Cleared of Fraud but did Act Dishonestly' March 12, 2024 [see also  Saul Hudson in Treasure Hunting World]). The blog's author Andy Brockman notes that this case "appears to have offered proof of a practice long rumoured to be the case on metal detecting forums, that is that some metal detectorists salt fields and rally sites with coins and artefacts from elsewhere and then dishonestly report them as being found at the location". [I would say that is more than a rumour, there is a lot of evidence that it is what has been happening]. But it also reveals something else too. But first, here is what had happened:

The case relates to sixty four year old Michael Jones of Rees Street, Port Talbot who appeared before Hereford Magistrates on March 11 accused on a single count of fraud by false representation. Mr Jones entered a plea of not guilty at an earlier hearing. The magistrates heard that Mr Jones had purchased silver denier coins, minted by the Crusader kingdom of Antioch between 1163 and 1201, from auction site E-bay for £200. He was then alleged to have buried the coins in a field at Oatcroft Farm in Titley, Herefordshire where one of the many un-regulated and unmonitored metal detecting rallies which take place almost daily in the UK was due to take place. Mr Jones is then alleged to have “discovered” the coins during the rally which was held by the K C Rallys club in July 2021. The find was then reported as possible “treasure” to the Portable Antiquities Scheme [...]

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Hmmm. I do not know how many readers have in their heads a picture of what these coins of Bohemond III of Antioch look like, they are relatively common on the global antiquities market and quite eagerly collected (and so also faked). There are 25 real and fake ones on eBay at the time, of writing, astoundingly 24 of them listed under "British" finds with the eappropriate misspellings to accompany the affirmation. Well, actually they were not in circulation in Briatain at the time (the reigns of Henry II and Richard I) and with the loopy design of the commonest form enountered on the market (vignette), probably would not have passed for British coin at the time. We ae not told how many coins he got for 200 quid, but looking at the prices they go for, there were either in very bad condition, or he was lucky.

Here however is another aspect. The (recte) Principality of Antioch was where now is most of Hatay province of Turkey and bits of the Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Latakia governates of Syria. The latter are partly still rebel-held territories in teh (still) ongoing civil war and looting is going on there (and in Hatay as is shown by the constant flow onto the market of fresh coins from the economic hinterland of the four Greek cities of the Syrian tetrapolis, Antioch, Seleucia Pieria, Apamea, and Laodicea). Yet, this aspect of whether Mr Jones could show that the coins he was handling had been excavated and legally removed from the source country seems not to have come up in court. But then British law preventing smuggled coins coming into the UK are complete crap. To get back to the story:

Mr Jones told the court he undertook the dishonest activity “for the fame and bravado that goes with it”.[eh? Does Mr Jones understand the meaning of that word? PMB] Mr Jones added, “It was stupid, I know. It was a feel-good thing, I just wanted to make myself look good,” “It was a moment of insanity, I just didn’t think.”

Possibly he was saying what his lawyers told him to testify. He got off from the potential charge of fraud because the Crown was not able to prove that Mr Jones had made the false report for financial gain for himself and the landowner.

I am more intrigued by teh connections between this discovery and the plans to build a solar farm here, in connection with the third series of the popular British TV show "Detectorists' series.

Former FLO Peter Reavill also testified that

“Such coins have never been found in the region before"[not surprisingly -PMB] ”they would have potentially altered the history of Herefordshire [...] “They are very rare and very important, especially if they could be linked to the Knight’s Templar”

Uh-oh. And why would somebody be doing that? this is the usual PAS dumbdown claptrap inventing trite narratives and finding "connections" instead of working within the bounds of the archaeological evidence.These coins are not "very rare"| pr - as loose objects off the no-questions-asked anytiquities market now of any "importance". Brockman adds: "While there is no evidence that Mr Jones himself has far right views or connections, the mention of the Knights Templar is interesting as the mythology surrounding the famous order of military monks is a popular theme among Far Right activists" as indeed it is.

Brockman also adds, tongue-in-cheek, I ssuspct: "officials of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and the numerous researchers who use its data, will also be concerned, wondering how many other dishonest reports of finds have found their way into the archaeological record without being discovered". The answer to that is obvious. The PAS do not in fact carefully vety the find circumstances of more than a handful of the items they include in their database, they just trust their "partners' to tell the truth. Personally, my earliests dealings with a metal detectorist involved him not telling me the truth about a findspot, which has somewhat affected my trust in these people from the beginning. The PAS is less sceptical. So I am engaged in a project of listing out-of-place artefacts in the PAS database. There are a disturbing number of them.

For me however this whole affair illustrates something else. How thick do you have to be to imagine that buying Middle Eastern artefacts online and trying to pass them off, not to equally thick collectors and dealers, but professional archaeologists fully familiar with thousands of British finds assemblageds, as British finds? Mega-thick I would day. But also how "responsible" is this? What is the purpose, do detectorists think, of "reporting objects to the Portale Antiquities Scheme"? If it was not for financial gain, what was Mr Jones' intent reporting these finds to teh PAS? “For the fame and bravado that goes with it, a feel-good thing, I just wanted to make myself look good”, in whose eyes and why did that involve the PAS? What actually is the real social role of the PAS in the British detecting community? He wasn't actually trying to pull a fast one over on the PAS was he? "Confound the experts, make them look like fools"? How many more?