UK Museum Theft

 

in the early hours of Tuesday 7 May, Ely Museum was broken into. Thieves stole the East Cambridgeshire gold torc and a gold bracelet, both dating from the Bronze Age.

British Archaeology and Duodecahedral Mystery Fever (I): The PAS Boost Their Recording Statistics

  Conversation Kenge @fen_ken

As an archaeologist, can I just say
that I am not interested in Roman polyhedra?
11:33 AM · May 6, 2024 ·

Fen Ken is almost alone however, suddenly Roman dodecahedra seem to have become the topic de jour over on Britarchy social media over the past few days. It all started (they say) last Monday with a BBC article by David McKenna and Gemma Dawson that proclaimed that an object recently found by some community archaeology volunteers "has left experts baffled". A professor is quoted saying:

"It has to be one of the greatest, most mysterious, archaeological objects I've ever had the opportunity to look at up close [...] There are so many mysteries in archaeology that remain to be solved. The overwhelming range of responses to it from the audience shows just how these ancient riddles can capture the public imagination."

There is a lot of media noise about this discovery and it is all unhelpfully object-centred and irritatingly mostly revolves around the connundrum that has "left the experts baffled":

"Is this the answer to the Roman dodecahedron puzzle that has archaeologists stumped? Guardian readers speculate on the purpose of a mysterious object unearthed at Norton Disney, near Lincoln" (Guardian)

"Beautifully crafted Roman dodecahedron discovered in Lincoln – but what were they for?" (the Conversation)

"The Norton Disney Dodecahedron One of Archaeology's Great Enigmas", (local archaeology group who found it)

"12-sided Roman relic baffles archaeologists, spawns countless theories" (Washinton Post)

The problem I have with this is the framing of archaeological enquiry only as a trivial pursuit of cluless boffins larking around like Scooby Doo trying to solve (object-centred) "mysteries", moreover the reade r too can join in with this archaeology lark, and have a go themselves at guessing the answer ("'oo needs experts, eh?"). And then we wonder why the publis - and lawmakers do not understand archaeology. They never will if all archaeology seems to offer them is trivial dumbdown entertainment. 

But it gets worse. There is a Portable Antiquities Scheme Database entry for the "responsibly-reported-by-the-finder" dodecahedron (but NO OTHER FINDS from this site).

DODECAHEDRON
Unique ID: LIN-BC9890
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow status: Published Find published
A complete cast copper-alloy dodecahedron dating to the Roman period (c. AD 43-410). Type 1b.
This object was discovered during a controlled archaeological investigation by a local History and Archaeology Group and Allen Archaeology and was recovered from a pit described by the excavators as a quarry infilled with debris as a midden. Other finds include a box-flue tile fragment, grey-ware pottery, roof tile debris and animal teeth. Photographs and information were kindly provided by Lorena Hitchens who is currently undertaking a PhD on the topic of dodecahedrons. The object has not been handled by the recorder. Photographs are the copyright of Lorena Hitchens. [...] Discovery metadata
Method of discovery: Controlled archaeological investigation (stratified)
Current location: Norton Disney History and Archaeology Groups / Allen Archaeology
General landuse: Cultivated land

Well, I'm not going to use those photos here (though PAS has a confusing attribution on the PASD - more about this later). 

But what on earth is going on here? The PAS database is not for reporting material recovered by organised excavations. Normally I would say that this is taking up time for all that recording metal detectorists' finds that they don't do... but here the FLO  says explicitly that she's not even had this thing in her hands - and yet in the PASD she is listed as the author of this entry (yeah- they are now anonymised to avoid taking responsibility, but there is a way around that). This is a repetition of the situation of the "Too-Bad" horse harness brooch recorded by PAS DENO for Hansons just before the sale - there the PAS lady just copied bits out of the auction catalogue and used photos supplied by the auction house. Something like that has happened here. Why?

Just look at the published PAS "description" of the object. Bear in mind the PAS record is supposed to be professional "preservation by record" of items most of which are in private hands and will soon disappear into the collectors' market. Maybe that is not the case here (if the landowner agrees, and the status of tehe xcavation archive is unclear to me), but then the PAS database records should be to the same (high) standards of consistency. Is this one? I'd say, absolutely not. Cutting out all the narrativisation crap (NB exactly what you'd find in a dealer's catalogue), this is what we get:

[...] The casting is of high quality, with no cracks, gaps or voids from manufacturing are visible.[...] object is decorated on all 12 faces. Face A, with the largest hole, has one ring. Face J, the face with the smallest hole, has three rings; all other faces have two rings. There are no other markings or stamps inside or outside the object. The holes on the faces are graduated with slight differences in size
Measurements
Height: 80 mm, Height (without knobs): 70 mm; Width: 86 mm[,] (without knobs) 75 mm; Weight: 254g. Side length of faces: 27 mm. 

there is a metal analysis, according to which it is a highly-leaded bronze (but there is a figure of 18% lead, and not 25% in another source online, so that needs verifying). 

I do not know what the PAS think, but I think that is a pretty useless decription, most of the words reflect what you can see in the photos - or would be able to if they were better lit, properly oriented (with a scale for God's sake) and not so fuzzy and utterly lacking depth of field as the one on the PAS website (who taught this person photography?). 

I do not see anywhere a discussion of how it was made (cire perdu investment mould? Brazed together from individual elements?), any tool marks, presence or absence of traces of wear on the holes or knops. The dimensions of the holes on each of the faces should rather be given (and she mentions faces 'A' and 'J', but the photo is not labelled or described in those terms). The object is hollow, are there any marks inside that reveal details of the assembly of either the polygon itself, or the mould? Any remnants of the mould core? Tool marks, or damage inside? Is the metal of all the faces the same thickness, what is the thickness of the bronze? The collars around the holes vary in width and profile, were they cast in, or cut out after casting (and if the latter how, if the centre was missing)? Why are some of them uneven, is that corrosion? Were all the knops cast integrally with the object, or were some or all of them brazed on afterwards (and if so how)? [also I think the PAS should in their descriptions - an official report of their professional examination of the object - be informing the finders/landowners that the object has bronze disease, as the photos seem to suggest this one does].

The apparent main author of this text, Ms Hitchens does not come over very well on social media. Primarily this is due to a recent pompous and rather patronising thread on this find apparently prompted by journalists asking somebody else to talk about  "her" dodecahedra instead of her.* She announces herself: "Hello. I'm @dodecahedragirl, the leading expert on Roman dodecahedra in the UK. [sic] let me be clear, no one has personally handled and evaluated more dodecahedra in the UK than me. [...] I find it very disappointing that the media doesn't do a little more homework in choosing "experts" to interview in my very narrow field". So, I'd like to know, despite all the bluster, whether her notes on all the other UK ones are as scanty as her description here for the "record" of this item in the PAS database. 

But what kind of an excavation was this? Why are finds from it appearing in the PAS database? I was intrigued by what could be read in one of the press accounts (Tom Metcalfe, 'Roman dodecahedron uncovered by amateur archaeologists in the UK' Live Science January 19, 2024) [is this the earlier text that Hitchens seems to be bitter about?]:   

The dodecahedron [...] was found this past summer during a dig in a farmer's field [...] metal detectorists had already found Roman coins and broaches in the same field, said Richard Parker, the secretary of the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group, an organization of local volunteers.[...] Parker was making a cup of tea nearby when a shout went up from some of the volunteers, who'd just unearthed the dodecahedron in one of the trenches the group made at the site for the two-week dig.
"It was our second-to-last day of the excavation, and up pops this dodecahedron in Trench Four," Parker told Live Science. "We were completely surprised by it. We weren't getting many metal [signals] at that point, but all of a sudden there it was."

Does what Mr Parker says indicate this was a metal detectorists'  dig, which is why the finds appear in the PAS record? But then, if this is what it was why were they digging down below ploughsoil?

I attempted to ask the local archaeology group about this record, why it was on the PAS database, and the background to the investigation that produced it. It very quickly became clear that, while happy with the five-minutes-of-fame from the media coverage of their wonderful "mystery object", they did not actually want to talk about the archaeology:

So, I would just have to find out about it from other sources, which is a shame. Archaeologists do not "own" the past, and in my opinion, real archaeology should be about sharing information and not sitting jealously on it and hiding from frank and open discussion. It seems from their reaction that the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group cant agree to that (see part two).

*Ms Hitchens also had a go at me for taking an interest in the PAS record and (in connection with that) the circumstances of the object's excavation and all the sudden object-centred publicity, dismissing my interest with: "You're not very informed about this find" - which could be, young lady, why I am trying to find out more...

British Archaeology and Duodecahedral Mystery Fever (II): The Archaeology Group Struts its Stuff

(Contd from Part one)

Puzzled by the reference to metal detecting in the text about the discovery in Live Science, and since the good folk of the so-called Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group did not actually want to discuss how one of their finds ended up in the PAS database, it turned out that if I wanted to find out more, I'd have to look at the material in the public domain about the third season (2023) of their (apparently) privately-funded excavation (7th-20th June 2023)  of the Potter Hill Dig site. It was there, in a feature in Trench 4 on Thursday 15th June, that the dodecahedron is reported as having been found. 

Apparently, something called  "Allen Archaeogy" [@allenarchaeo] is in some way involved in this project. It is not clear what the formal status is or how that is organised and funded or what its role actually is, but it is worth noting that on their own website, Norton Disney does NOT figure in its presentation of their "projects". So that is another thing that is unclear. 

So who was directing this dig? What are the research aims?  

The information I found online was profoundly disturbing. We do not know how many diggers there were, but the photos suggest that on a good day there were c. 15 of them. And we know the digging was planned for ten work days. Whoever was in charge decided that this was enough to open not one trench but FOUR, on a Roman site, across deep stratigraphy (a pebble floor stratified in one section, pits and ditches already known from geophys). There is no site plan in the Group's materials, but it seems from the photos those trenches are (by eye - not a ranging rod scale anywhere in the whole series of site photos) four metres-plus (five? metres) across and more than 20m long.  To my mind, that is simply irresponsible, there is no way that (unless the trenches were utterly sterile) that is enough people to deal with an area that size properly in the time available. 

So the result is what we see. There are no grid pegs for planning, nor any equipment for surveying /measuring visible in the photos. There are no planked barrow runs, no wheelbarrows, if its too far to the spoilheap from where somebody is digging, loose soil is just heaped on the ecavated area. There are spilt earth and trample all over the excavated surface. I dread to think what the site photographs look like. But then, in the dig diary there is no mention of cleaning up the area around a feature for a photo, or a general site view.  Wroxeter Baths Basilica this is not. 

Attention is drawn to a number of cases where one one day in the photo of a trench there is no socking big hole in it, but a photo taken a day later shows a large cubic volume of archaeological (one assumes) deposit has been removed, apparently in one go. It is difficult to see whether a half-section of these features was attempted. The whole dig gives the impression of having been done in a huge hurry. Why?  In addition, the site is a disgusting mess - apart from anything else a site in that state is a huge risk of alien material appearing to come from layers it has not - ie of contamination. Where did the volunteers doing this learn to excavate? Where is the site discipline?

There are vague mentions of a "surface" (seen in the photo as having been cut through, rather than exposed and planned) a "[quarry] pit" and "ditches" - but there is no site plan to show that any length of any of these features was traced anywhere. The photos show that little box-trenches were dug by the trench-edge baulks (crooked, not vertical or for the most part not cleaned back), but it is not clear what they represent. No photographs show any of the layers as labelled in the field. 

Trench 4 of the Potter Hill Dig  (photo:Trench 4 of the Potter
Hill Dig (photo:Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group
- fair use for criticism, comment, news reporting and teaching)

It is against this sorry background that we should discuss the dodecahedron find. There is no mention of the find in the so-called "dig diary" online, but there is a photo of what "Richard, Richard and Julian" were doing on that day in that hole... and basically one can only remark, "what the ****?" What is the excavation strategy here? Three blokes digging randomly down at different depths. What's going on here, where is the edge of the feature? The baulks are all over the place, on day nine, the spoil heap is right on the trench edge and part of it is sliding into the excavation (I use the term loosly). There is a shovel lying blade up, a hoe (for some reason) lying in the hole. 

I cannot really see what those three blokes are doing in that hole. It is entirely possible that a large feature like that has several phases of filling, but digging it like that, the excavators would be hard-put to identifying them (or any intrusive features or post-depositional effects), and therefore the actual context of the dodecahedron. So it may well be one of the few from an excavated context, but from what we can see so far of this excavation, that really does not count for much.

In the dig diary intended to inform the wider public about what was done and how by this group of archaeologists, most of the photos are not of the site and the features found and explored, but people holding pieces of pottery, or finds trays full of pottery (mostly the big bits - no sieving here apparently, though the soil looks ideal for it). The dig diary throughout talks of getting more and more "finds" but little about the contexts. The whole text reads as if this "archaeology group" thinks archaeology is just about "digging up old things" (23 kg of them apparently - they weighed them). The impression this archaeologist gets from looking at the material they have produced and publicised so far is that this is basically just an artefact hunt. This is the legacy of the PAS in action. 

BUT, unlike what I was expecting from the earlier write up, no metal detectors in sight. I am not sure here however that this is a good thing. No mention was made of a single coin being found. No 'Constantinian grots', no barb. rads. If that is the case, how carefully were they digging? 

In the event, after just ten digging days, these holes were backfilled without, it seems from the presented account (and as may easily have been predicted), any of them having been fully examined and it is not stated which research aims were fulfilled. If their shoestring funding stretches to a return to the site, will it be possible to return to them and pickup where they finished off? I'd say the apparent lack of evidence of a fixed planning grid, if that is the case, is going to make it difficult.  

With my Polish archaeologist hat on, I would say that - while there are also huge problems in Poland - a case like this demonstrates the value in several ways of the permit system (Valetta Convention art. 3 that the UK rejected) and the oversight of standards of fieldwork by an external body (the regional conservation services to whom fieldworkers have to report in the interests of conservation of the archaeological record). Perhaps cases like this show the need for a rethinking of this?

As I said, since the archaeology group refused to discuss this with me, in order to understand the background, I am perforce having to use the material they themselves put into the public domain to show what they are capable of and what they were doing. This raises more questions than had been my nitial intent to discuss, but what the documentation seems to show is highly concening. It looks to me that the site is being unneccessarily damaged. From what I can see, there are a few doubts about the archaeological context of the site's most famous find, and about the quality of the information this "dig" is producing in general. The word "amateur" does not have to mean "bad", from what we can see, there is a LOT of room for improvement here. 

I do hope the "Dig Diary" is misleading and the site and excavation process did not really look like this. But then, if that's the case, what is the point of any of this? 

British Archaeology and Duodecahedral Mystery Fever (III): This is Mine!

 

Bonkers does not even begin to describe the situation over the Norton Disney dodecahedron - part (as we say) of the common archaeological heritage of us all. Except it is not... says the "Responsible Finder" who reported it to the PAS so it could be recorded for public benefit. Look at this public record funded by public money to record for public benefit items ripped out of a common resource .

DODECAHEDRON
Unique ID: LIN-BC9890
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow status: Published Find published
A complete cast copper-alloy dodecahedron [...]

Notes: Enquiries relating to the creation of 3D Models.

Please note that a license from the private owner of that object is required before creating and distributing a 3D model of the dodecahedron. However, the owner is choosing to remain anonymous. There will be a published report that will be submitted to the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record (HER) although again the report will still be copyrighted by its author(s), so again, permission is required to use that [sic PMB] data for any models.   [...]  

This raises so many questions. 

The Note does not cite the legal basis for that, nor the precise circumstances referred to. It is very questionable whether there is such a basis. The intellectual property rights and copyright of the creator of the object itself have expired. The guy died a millennium and a half or more ago, as have any folk he could have transferred those rights to. 

But at any rate, if this object came from an archaeological excavation, who here is claiming those rights? The dig director, the volunteer who mattocked it out of the ground, the lady who made the teas in the tent, or the landowner? (The latter can hardly be anonymous, we know who they are.) 

The mention of a "published report copyrighted by its author [...] permission is required to use [those] data for any models". What kind of 3-d model data of the excavated finds are going to be in that report? Usually though, when you submit a text to somebody who will use it, you also sign a form assigning to them the rights. So not the "authors" but administrators of the LHER.  What the PAS have published is nonsense. 

Why are 3-d printouts of artefacts a problem to the PAS? I think it is a really good idea, everyone can have a printout of the Venus of Willendorf, a Clovis point, or some Mesopotamian cunies with the Flood story, or a cylinder seal ("showing the Aneki and Nibiru" - or whatever). There are quite a lot of them on eBay and Etsy, a lot of them with "Biblical" associations.  I see nothing wrong (if they are good quality and accurate) with people collecting them instead of collecting real dugup ones, indeed I would even commend it, and encourage their production.   Museums all over the world sell casts, electrotypes or impressions of objects in their collections so people can enjoy them at home (The BM where the PAS is, does a nice line). We remember also the case of a purported scan of the Nefertiti bust in the German museum (that Egypt alleges was removed from the country dishonestly) that you can now buy to print out to have one yourself. Now an official version is also available (nota bene through a 2019 challenge to precisely the same kind of restrictions that the BM's PAS is trying here to enforce).  

I am not clear what "data" the PAS are referriung to. Has somebody 3d-scanned the Norton Disney dodecahedron and then somebody stole the files? Is that what this is about? Or are they talking about somebody taking flat 2-d photos from the public domain and through creative jiggery-pokery turning the shades and highlights into contours that are then used with a bit of geometry to assemble a 3-d model? I would argue that, if the latter, the resultant model is the creation of its creator (duh) rather than infringing on the rights of any anonymous finder or the creators old geometry teacher. 

It so happens that there was what purported to be a scan of the Norton Disney dodecahedron out there. There is this one by a bloke called Chris that WAS on a Czech tech site, but for some reason has been taken down recently.

There are others. This one (not very convincing) has been constructed from measurements (also "protected data" PAS?) of one found in Tongeren, in the Gallo-Roman Museum, Tongeren. This nice-looking one is a metal cast made from a  mould that was either created from a scan or a constructed model. A less nice one, 3-d printed. A London Museum resin cast one is nice-looking but sold out. And so on... somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to make these and in my view, it is not as easy as it looks at first sight.

I really see nothing wrong with this. As we saw in the first post, certain people in archaeology seem to think (IMO, wrongly) that it is really  jolly good to get the grockles guessing "what this mystery object that has archaeologists baffled could be".  They can do it from pictures of course, or much more effectively they could have a 3d printout in their hand to heft, look at from different angles, squint through the holes, poke things into the holes and so on. Nothing like hands-on experience. Now this is what PAS-gatekeepers want to restrict. First they encourage "public involvement" (GUESS WOT THIS IS!!??), then they add, "yes, but only in the way WE tell you you can". 

I wish they'd apply the same approach to digging holes in sites to hoik out collectable artefacts, somehow the PAS can't seem to do that. 

Granite Vase Fantasies: Rubbish In, Rubbish Out

The guy claiming on social media that super-accurate measurements with extremely sophisticated machinery of 'ancient' stone vases with sophisticated geometry and technical parameter are evidence of some Lost Ancient Knowledge are back: 

;Matt Beall @MattbLimitless The CT scan report on thin walled granite artifacts is back! The X & Y axis of the lip and width vary by less than 1/1000 of an inch, making it perfectly round. Also, IT WAS LATHED. the surface deviation proves that. This is the first time that we can conclusively prove that with data (more data will be released in the coming weeks/months). So either [sic]
1.) The Egyptians made this and we don’t know how or what tools they used (same as pyramids/serapeum etc)
2 a more ancient civilization made this and the other precision artifacts
3 it’s a modern forgery

Previously, we had pointed out that his vases could not be considered evidence because they were unprovenanced (ungrounded) items from the antiquities market and thus were probably fakes (so nothing would be surprising in them being produced using sophisticated equipment equivalent to modern machine tools beccause they probably were produced using modern machine tools). Now he's showing unprovenanced (ungrounded) items from the antiquities market with COAs (!) "Here’s the certificate of authenticity". Read it. Who's going to tell him?

I'd also like to know which Egyptian rose granite is this? it does not look like any of the types currently commercially available from Egypt. So if there are no more outcrops that could have been exploited, where did the raw material come from, how and when?

The Teddy Kollek collection is a storied provenance. We are told that some 56 years ago a member of the Barakat family bought it, kept it in a storeroom for half a century before selling it to the current owner. Is there an Israeli export documentation showing how it got to London? The questiuon is, can it be proven that it was from the Teddy Kollek collection? Mr Beall refuses to answer my question of whether there is anything written on this vessel or an old collectors' label. A shame. Then again, if Mr Kollek (who collected mainly Israeli pieces) acquired this from somebody, how did he ascertain that it was an authentic antiquity <1968? 

Mr Beale lightly mentions that in his opinion, the dealer he bouighht it from might have been mixed up in illegal activity. Of course I do not believe that for a second, but here for the record is what he wrote, clutching at straws to make it seem more likelly this vessel is ancient:

"There was the 6 day war in 1967 where Israel occupied Egypt and is said to have stolen artifacts. Barakat was based in Jerusalem at that time and would have been THE place to offload the loots. I’d be happy to return it to Egypt if it can be verified as genuine and stolen. A few of my others have 1968 Provence and Uzi Narkiss as prior owner. He was the general who occupied Egypt on the ground".

Look at this: 

William Wallace Welker @Will_W_Welker ·13h
Nice to have proof but anybody who has used a lathe and examined these jars already knew that. Modern forgery is unlikely due to the extremely high number of these jars that have been found.

Mmmm. There were a lot of them, but one cannot assume that the undocumented ones on the antiquities market are the same as the body of examples in excavation storerooms (!). These are two separate bodies of material and cannot be studied in the same way. Mr Beall is so convinced that he would be able to prove something if he had access to properly-excavated (grounded) material that, unlike the "orphan" and "floating" material on the antiquities market, cannot be a modern product. Then why not persevere and put together, in collaboration with other specialists, a research project to get that access, instead of faffing about with privately-owned "samples" of unknown provenance? 

UPDATE  9th May 2024

Both he and his 'alternative pasts' pals seem annoyed that somebody is discussing his ideas (referring to my tweet linking to this post):

Matt Beall @MattbLimitless
Help me out here David. Why was my post rubbish? Why was this repost worth reposting, you didn’t comment on it and I personally didn’t see anything material in it. I didn’t get anything out of it except anger and frustration and division. I am suggesting that there are three options. I am open to all three. Can we stay open minded and work together to get some answers? 11:25 PM · May 8, 2024

Ahsam Koji @AshamKoji · 5h
Matt, he is unable to critise your methodology or hypothesis only providence (sic). Like Anyextee who will slander you for encroaching on “their” territory. Rather than collaborate or offer ad hominem free criticism they fear your will ‘steal’ market share. Tour Tickets / Add Views

I beg to disagree, I think there is something materioal in the post... Yes, three options were proposed on the basis of what he saw as "evidence", but Ockham's razor reduces it to one. If you cannot document that the object really was made in pre-dynastic times, all the rest goes out of the window. It is as simple as that. I am not sure what part of that would be difficult to understand for a person of normal intelligence. Rubbish data in, rubbish conclusions out. Get better samples to test your theories on, then we can discuss 'options'.

Dodecahedron "Mystery" Brings in Money for the Dealers

According to the Antiques Trade Gazette a Roman dodecahedron of unknown origin

was offer   ed for sale on the open market at Wilkinson’s in Doncaster on Dec. 3 2022. The estimate was £800-1200. No information regarding its provenance was included in the catalogue and auction house and buyer were keeping tight-lipped about its collection history and any documenatation related to it. In the end, the object sold for £33,000.

Heritage Watch Watches

                        An Edwardian castle?              

Hooray, hurrah, hwre:

Gwent Police | Rural Crime Team @GPRuralCrime · 9h
#RuralCrimeTeam investigating a report of illegal #MetalDetecting on a protected #ScheduledMonument in #Monmouthshire today #PartnershipWorking with @CadwWales we investigate all reports of #NightHawking activity on our #Historic sites

What does that actually in real (not fluffy-wuffy talk) mean? Go along look at the site, see/not see traces of overnight digging, and.... what? The offence has three components (a) entering private property, (b) digging holes in itm, and (c) making off with artefacts. What Britain needs for combatting (a) is a system like the one being introduced in Poland next year by a new law whereby through registering using their phones, active metal detectorists give the authorities their phone details, so they can be tracked using phone data and their presence on a particular field at a particular time can be documented. As for (c) it is an easyt matter to identify finds in a seized private collection that do not have any legitimising documentation, such as protocols signed by teh landowner assigning ownership to items from their land. Are Gwent police investigating that? Doubt it. Who can see a flaw in both of those measures? This reveals that a proper discussion of these issues is the only way we can stop faffing about and get a truly effective system in place to protect the archaeological record from looting by irresponsible and law-breaking actors.

Reference:
Paul Barford, 'An App, a Map, and a Reward: Promoting and Enabling Artefact Hunting in Poland', The European Archaeologist 78 (October 2023) (mirror here)

PROTECTION versus EXPLOITATION British Archaeology's "Big Dilemma"

The laws of finding – and keeping – treasure in Britain (msn.com)

"Although academics might harbour "resentments and jealousies" about the successes of amateurs, any ill-feeling is "tempered" by the fact that nearly all of their finds would never show up in an archaeological excavation. "Most of these finds are made on cultivated land," said Lewis. "If metal detectorists didn't find them, they'd just be lost to plowing."

Hmm. Resentments and Jealousies? I really think British archaeology is utterly failing to get the message across. We do nature conservationm not out of jealousy and resentment for the proud owner of bunches and bunches of wild flower ripped out of the woodled snd soon to wilt stuck in vases. Or jealousy that Fred Scruggins has a bigger collection of blown Osprey eggs than any academic might have. Where did MSN get that idea from, and jwhy are conservationists not putting them straight about that? Where do people like this get such ideas about conservation from?

So is the idea of conserving ospreys to get all the eggs we can find in museum cases? Butterfly conservation Professor Lewis, to get them all in nice neat rows pinned to a label in the British Museum Natural History? To get all the statues of teh remote easater Island, where hardly anyone sees them and install as many as we can on the stairwell in the BRitish Museum? Rip all the sculptures off the temples of SE Asis so they can "be preserved" in private collections and museums - after all Professor Lewis, if left in the jungle and caves, "nearly all of them would never show up in an archaeological excavation. If artefact hunters don't find them, saw them off, they'd just be lost to the jungled". yes, Professor Lewis? That's ghow we preserve the legacy of the past in your eyes? I do not see it that way. Besides teh artefact a that are found in ploughed fields but BELOW plough level, we yes, we do not see them there, but that is what iun archaeological parlance is called "undisturbed archaeological record" (I'd refer the learned academic to the Valletta Convention). Then again, a lot of metal detecting is done on grassland, so not ploughed felds, some is done in forests, some in open water. I do not think this Lewisian Argumentation applieds to it all, nor does it make sense as archaeological resource PROTECTION. What it is he is advocating there is some crude form (because tekkies dig blind and tend to keep no real records)of Archaeological Resource EXPLOITATION. Which to choose? What a dilemma for British archsaeologists. Think of themselves, or think of future generations' usage of what tehey leave behind?





he . Then again, a lot of metal detecting is done on grassland, so not ploughed felds, some is done in forests, some in open water. I do not think this Lewisian Argumentation applieds to it all, nor does it make sense as archaeological resource proection. What it is he is advocating there is(some crude form 9because tekkiees dig blind and tend to keep no real records) Archaeological Resource

The Only Reason to Replace an Ancient Nose..."

This is weird, even for pseudoarchaeology and actually reflects insistence on "racial" stereotypes ("what an African nose should look like").  Rather a chaotic video. by two guys who clearly don't know what actually comes out of the ground. But then again, there were Black Pharoahs (25th dyn) and some dark-skinned members even of the Theban royal house, but not all the time. But obviusly fantasy and playing teh victim take priority over actually establishing facts.  

Posted on You Tube by @kingmono "FORGERIES - w/ Prof. Manu Ampim" Streamed live on Apr 28, 2024.‧

Let's just point out that the statue at the beginning showing an inserted nose is the result of what the early art market (18/19th cent) actually did to 'restore' damaged statues before a dealer sold them, the Vatican Museum and others have hundreds with new arms, fingers, genitals, heads etc etc added where they had been broken off. Many Egyptian statues have the noses broken off (the Christains are to be blamed for some ot it - eyes gouged out too - , but whaen a statue falls over face first, the nose tends to go...) . Africa is a big continent, and there are a wide range of physical types speread across the continent. In North Africa (where Egypt IS), the dominant range of nose shape is not at all coincident with what these guys consider as "African" - despite being nose of peeople that live in Africa and desceneded from people that lived in Africa.

Some Cairo faces

 
.

Estonia returns almost three hundred Ukrainian artifacts

 

British Archaeology Fail: APPAG Cuddly Pink Unicorn Inquiry on Archaeology and Artefact-Hunting

APPAG Inquiry on Archaeology and Metal-detecting

Relations between archaeologists and the metal-detecting community have improved significantly over the last 25, especially with the establishment of the Portable Antiquities Scheme – a project to record archaeological finds made by the public in England and Wales – and reform of the Treasure Act 1996, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most archaeologists now recognise the value of detector finds for advancing knowledge, and recognise the contribution made by responsible metal-detecting for understanding Britain’s past. The UK has led the way in this regard, becoming a model for public finds recording schemes elsewhere in Europe. However, there is a recognition that more could be done to bring these communities closer together in the public interest, especially with more people than ever taking up hobby metal-detecting. As such, the aim of this inquiry is to see what can be done to support responsible metal-detecting in England (specifically) and promote the benefits of archaeologists and metal-detectorists working more closely together. We therefore welcome written submissions from anyone with responses to any or all the questions in the call for evidence by the deadline of 30 April 2024:

1). What are the main factors contributing to better relations between archaeologists (whether academic, commercial, community, museum-based, organisational etc) and metal-detectors users (both independent and within detecting organisations), and how could these be advanced further?

2). What is the role of hobby metal-detecting (as a research tool) in the context of advancing our understanding of the archaeology and history of Britain, and how does that link with professional and non-professional archaeology? How should access to metal-detected finds (especially those in private collections) be facilitated, for both the wider public and academic study?

3). What is the relationship between metal-detecting and other forms of community archaeology, and how could closer cooperation be encouraged?

4). How do we better promote responsible metal-detecting, and what are the roles of archaeological bodies, landowners, detecting organisations and those that organise events for detectorists, such as those organising detecting holidays and rallies?

5). How could archaeologists better facilitate the use of metal-detectorists (and the wider public) in archaeological projects, and what are the barriers to that? Might it be possible to develop and promote methodologies for systematic metal-detecting surveys?

6). How do archaeologists, metal-detectorists and others work together to better acknowledge best practice? What is the role of museums (for example) and other publicly funded bodies in highlighting the positive contribution of metal-detecting?

7). How have museums benefitted from detector finds, and how could mechanisms be improved to enable museums to acquire more public finds?

8). What should happen to archaeological finds found through metal-detecting not acquired by museums? How can metal-detectorists be encouraged and supported to document their collections and plan for when they can no longer look after them?

Total submissions should be no longer than 500 words and sent by email to APPAG@archaeologyuk.org.

Following the submission of written evidence, the committee will select representative parties to give oral evidence at the Houses of Parliament.

The committee will decide whether to accept a submission and whether to publish it – all written evidence will be considered by the committee (whether published or not). Once a submission is published it cannot be changed. Consider carefully how much personal information you share.

All pink unicorn stuff. Five hundred words is the length of their notice, so a rather dumbdown "inquiry". And all of the questions are loaded, the typical jobsworthy and conciliatory-defeatist claptrap that is all British archaeology can offer. Searching for the word "context", "methodoilogy" or "documentation", "ethics" or anything much else than mealy-mouthed fluff, then you'll see where this is going. Needless to say I did not bother. I wonder what the response was. | 

For the record: 

1). THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE is that there is no "better relations between artefact hunters/collectors" and archaeologists/ heritage professionals generally and it is head-in-sand bollocks to say there are. Look on the metal detecting forums and social media. Just look. 

2). WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE (and if you can't be bothered yourself, there are also several recent papers by me "Alter Vikings", Medieval, Judaica - one on Bronze Age possibly coming up soon) hobby artefact hunting and collecting do not actually "advance our understanding of the archaeology". If you look objectively and as archaeology, the questions it asks and answers are simplistic and mostly based on Kossinnist dots on maps. Context is ignored,. That is NOT archaeology but antiquarianism. 

How it "links with professional archaeology" is that archaeologists get a supply of loose artefacts to write context-frei articles about without getting up off their butts. 

Metal detecting (artefact hunting and collecting) is NOT Archaeology any more than collecting costume Barbie dolls is ethnology.

3). Since artefact hunting, ripping loose archaeological finds from a more complex context, treating the latter as a quarry for collectables is NOT archaeology, it can't have any relationship with "other" archaeologies.  Loaded question - APPAG should define what archaeology is - just "digging up old things"? 

4). From the point of view of actively managing the erosion of the archaeological record by the various agences that are reducing it, it seems to me that the term "responsble artefact hunting and collecting" is an oxymoron, or at least has yet to be properly defined in Britain. The superficial and antedilluvian Code of Best Practice...,) hardly does that as it fails to cover issues such as targeting known sites, information collection strategies, and the dissemination of the record (finds) when a personal collection is dismantled.

- "detecting organisations and those that organise events for detectorists, such as those organising detecting holidays and rallies" [as the PAS already say; see also Heritage Action in 2017]  are NOT treating the archaeological record responsibly, they are using it up just to make some money for themselves. APPAG should define "responsible" first.  

5). Not only is it "possible to develop methodologies for systematic metal-detecting surveys" people are doing them (Rendlesham in GB, Grunwald here in Poland, work in Denmark). What are you "inquiring" about? Whether hobbyists can or will do them on their own initiative? Just read the forums and don't ask stupid questions. 

6). Is "highlighting the positive contribution of metal-detecting" what the emphasis should be on? what about highlighting for the better informnation of the wider public the damage done when it is done "wrong"? (again, what actually - from a resource conservation point of view - is that non-damaging "right" anyway? I do not see one, not in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or the UK).

7). What pressures are put on museums by not curbing the way the archaeological record is being hoovered up and dumped in their glass cases without much site context?  When we have the National Museum of Wales deemed superfluous and closing - are these pressures that museums can cope with in this period of Britain's cultural decline? WOULD the National Museum of Wales be "saved' if some metal detectorist walked in with even the biggest ever Roman denarii hoard found in a Welsh field, twice as big as any ever known from the British Isles? Of course not, the problem lies elsewhere. 

8). "What should happen to archaeological finds found through metal-detecting not acquired by museums?" Should have thought about that before potentially 12.27mln of them have already been dug up and dispersed. I'd be interested in collecting here the references to all those conference papers delivered on this subject in Britain since 1996. 

 

Yet Another Rusty Helmet Just Surfaces on the Antiquities Market

               Facebook, what's that               
 in the background?

Over on Facebook Antique arms and armours of Europe Group ( 39K+ followers)

Michael Pernik Sstpnodoer27f
I offer here a original viking age iron helmet (Kreuzbandhelm) 700-900 AD in good condition without restauration price VB

He wants 3700 Euro for it but the only collection history he offers is that it came from a "German Auction house" and then shows an invoice from Stauffer Auktionen, Munsingen, German [with his address on it] dated to 5th April 2020 for a "bandhelm 10 Jahrhundert" (which differs from the description he's offering it with).

The auction house is an odd one to have bought something like this and entrust its authentication, its current sale is a lot of bric-a-brac.   

It's not getting a very good reception on the FB page. It simply does not look right. Then somebody discovered I'd written about one like this that appeared in the hands of a longhaired tattooed pawnshop proprietor on a dumbass US TV show with a guest appearance from a US antiquities dealer: Dealer Dodge and the Curious Case of the Anglo-Saxon helmets (I)

On the Facebook page, they seem to think the one I wrote about is the one now being sold by Mr Pernik. In fact it is not, the Pawnstars one has flatter bands, flatter rivets, did not have the hole in the crown just upposite a broken area of the browband that the Stauffer one does. 

In fact, there is a medieval helmet shape to which these ones are closer, the cervelliere helm, 12th to 13th centuries (tthough sometimes worn later). Some of these have a lack of visible means of attachment to a liner or fastenings (were they glued to a padded cap that did?)

So it means that Mr Pernik has had two of these in his hands in recent years, and he is trying valiantly to sell this one online instead of going to a proper auctioneer. Where are all of these helmets with very similar construction and odd features coming from?

Unesco verifies damage to 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza

Unesco verifies damage to 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza

In addition to the enormous human cost of the Israel-Gaza war, cultural heritage has been heavily impacted by the conflict. At least 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza have been damaged since the war began on 7 October 2023, Unesco has verified. Although on-the-ground assessments are currently impossible, the UN agency is conducting preliminary damage assessments for cultural properties through remote monitoring based on satellite imagery and analysis. As of 8 April 2024, Unesco has verified damage to 43 sites – 10 religious sites, 24 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, two depositories of movable cultural property, three monuments, one museum and three archaeological sites. This is almost double the number of damaged sites listed by the agency in January 2024, which stood at 22. Unesco has called for the protection of cultural sites and for all involved parties to strictly adhere to international law.

As if what Netanyahu's Israel was doing in the Gaza enclave was in any way in accord with "international law".

Another Getty Trophy Piece Goes Back to Turkey. Museum-Speak Translation

“In light of new information recently provided

by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit

of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal 

excavation of this bronze head, we agreed that the object

needed to be returned to Türkiye”

museum director Timothy Potts.

.

A disembodied life-sized bronze head of a young mandating back to 100 BCE–100 CE currently among the rophy pieces in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has been removed from view and will soon be repatriated to Turkey (Adam Schrader, 'The Getty Museum Returns an Ancient Bronze Head to Turkey' Artnet.news April 24, 2024 - see also NYT). "The museum said it had received new information from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating it had been illegally excavated". Translated, that means that when the bought it, and all the time they've had it on display, the Museum had zero documentation verifying that it had been legally excavated.

The head had been in the antiquities collection at the Getty Villa Museum since it was acquired in 1971. But the museum said it had received new information from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York indicating it had been illegally excavated. The California museum did not reveal what new information had come to light about the excavation, and officials in New York did not yet respond to a request for information. [...] said in a statement. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the details of its investigation.

It is likely that this bronze head is another of those items excavated clandestinely in the late 1960s at Bubon, in the Burdur province of southwestern Turkey and smuggled out onto the international antiquities market.

There are many resources for reading about the looting on Bubon, including this feature on Smart History worth revisiting: 'Looting, collecting, and exhibiting: the Bubon bronzes (video) by  Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe and Dr. Steven Zucker Aug 29, 2017.

"Additional resources:

Dr. Elizabeth Marlow, “Marlowe on the Real Issue with the Glyptotek Head” from the Illicit Cultural Property Blog.

Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe, “When Will Museums Tell the Whole Truth About Their Antiquities?,” Hyperallergic, September 14, 2022

Bubon on Chasing Aphrodite

Bubon on Looting Matters"

The Getty bronze head (acc. no. 71.AA.458 ) had been bought in 1971 for $90,000 from Nicolas Koutoulakis, an antiquities trafficker based in Parishead

Ram Raid at Antiquities Auction House

Hansons’ saleroom in Derbyshire has been the victim of a ram-raid break-in, the auction house in Heage Lane, Etwall suffered a burglary during the early hours of April 18.( Laura Chesters, 'Jewellery taken during ram raid at Hansons auction house', Antiques Trade Gazette, 22 Apr 2024). Hansons has previously been involved in a number of controversial sales of portable antiquities straight from the ground for huge profits.

Criminals used a vehicle to reverse into the building six times, breaking through its roller shutter, a window and parts of the brick structure. They took jewellery that was destined for auction that day.[...] alarms were linked to the police and officers and people from the security firm were on the scene “promptly”.[...] The first day of a planned four-day sale - a silver, watches and jewellery auction - was postponed.

Shame, eh?

Oh, I see

Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6
Ancient civilizations were FAR more advanced than they teach in school.
Something disastrous happened to destroy them, and cause us to forget.
The fact the woke left Media are viscerally attacking this topic and those discussing it should be a wake up call. *Everything they deny or attack = Truth*
7:22 PM · Apr 18, 2024

· 68.9K Views

What about the sleepy left and the yawning right? If they ignore the topic, does that also make it "true"?

Of course if something disastrous happens to a community, their natural human reaction is just to "forget" about it, and forget their past "greatness" before it happened. Yes?

Just look at the comments underneath... laugh, or cry? Should archaeologists feel some kind of obligation to engage with that kind of mindset? Would it do any good, or is it a waste of time? But then whose heritage is it, who has rights to ignore it being publicly misrepresented like this? What do professional ethics say about just turning a back to it?

Public Archaeology: Whether to laugh or Cry

Whether to laugh or cry

Kam Borne @Whambahhlamm · Apr 16
How they come into conclusion that there is no lost civilization is Sahara. When there used to be lakes and rivers. Plus the knowledge of Atlantis In Egypt. That is an end to end civilization in the continent. They are doubting there is no settlement in the middle.

ummm? Read, notta lot, much confu?

Jimmy Corsetti @BrightInsight6 · Apr 17
Establishment academics and archaeologists are inherently Naysayers.
Numerous Studies exist stating ancient humans once inhabited the Green Sahara.
Yet, only 1% has been excavated. And not only that, the only ones talking about it are the alternative researchers!

and arrowhead collectors? So if the academicsw are the naysayers, who wrote the "studies"? It's not much point excavatinbg a desert site denuded by deflation. Everything [that the looters have not already removed] is there on the surface. A lot of the work is extensive surface survey, plotting settlement location, size, collecting material, moving on. This is also compared with the detailed study of sediments in wadis and valleyys, or soil horizons buried by later accumulation (eg., dunes, or material deposited at the base of a slope).

Ramon @RAMolledo · Apr 17
Establishment academics and intellectuals are simply “Gatekeepers” to ensure that regular people don’t explore, study, and do their own research. There seems to be a concerted effort to do this.
People get shamed and discouraged from exploring topic’s themselves. This is a sin.

These people are so pathetic, playing the victim not even because nobody handed them something on a plate, but because they are totally oblivious to there being something that would immediately set them straight.

My advice to them:

There's literally HUNDREDS of open access texts out there in the public domain, full of basic source information on precisely the archaeology of the Green Sahara that anyone can access, read, download - for example here [totally random openaccess archaeological journal article From onlinelibrary.wiley.com], then check the links it gives in the bibliography to access others, and so on.

The issue is not that somebody's keeping this from you, its that you can't be bothered to read it - just a mouse click away. @Whambahhlamm can find out about communities on the lakes and rivers and what kind of civilisation they actually had. Nobody is saying they were not there.

But what's clear IF you delve into it (please do before complaining again that "nobody's done any work there"), is that there was not the type of civilization that Hancock seems to be postulating or not (the debate leaves it very unclear what his claims now are)

Do you reckon they'll be happy that they can fulfil their ambition to find out at first hand about Saharan archaeology of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene to confront with Hancock's "might have been"s?




Cited text: Nutz A, Kwiecien O, Breitenbach SFM, et al. Fluvio-lacustrine sedimentation in the Agadir-Tissint Feija (anti-Atlas, Morocco): A promising palaeoclimate archive for the last glacial cycle in northwest Africa. Depositional Rec. 2019; 5: 362–387. https://doi.org/10.1002/dep2.65

Another one, "Eyes to See" = "Looks Like"

 
The "Looks like" argument again.

1) Suppose the erosion on the Sphinx is wind and salt crystallisation and not flowing water... but I'd like to ask, given the relief of the hill into which the Sphinx enclosure was dug (and its relationship to the causeway to its south), this water was "flowing" from where, though? Why was it not flowing downhill, but along the slope? (Look at the relief of the TOP of the sides of the Sphinx enclosure, highest on the NE corner). Anyone care to draw us a plan of where this imaginary deluginuous water was collecting and flowing from and to - taking into account the form of the land before the tomb cemetery was built...

.

2) I would like to ask those who think an outcrop at Yonaguni is a building, to give us a reconstruction of it in use, showing people to scale, using its various spaces and platforms. What were the various bits of it used for? All those superfluous steps that lead nowhere, a threesided "pool"... So you stand on the top... and do what? How do you actually get ON the top without having to scale a sheer wall? Where is the door? How can this rock function as a building? Can we see the othr outcrops in the vicinity? Like the one to the left in this visualisation... 

. 

What Happens When you Do Public Archaeology?

 I just want to make a record of this behaviour. The sociology of popular science.

Here's a tweet:

In my opinion, in the debate, Flint Dibble produced a very balanced and well-argued response to what Hancock had written and said in the past. Here's some of the reactions of Hancock's supporters. Question: How many of them actually listened to the points being made? 

Pretty mind-boggling. What kind of mind-world do these people inhabit? Why are they reading an archaeology thread if they have not the slightest intention of making any effort to understand what they read there? What kind of social inadequate is it that sees a post like this only as a space, an opportunity to show their own ignioorance, disregard and how 'alternative science' empowers boors like these? This is the primitive tribal mentality that votes Brexit, votes Trump  and drives like an idiot with zero regard for otthers on the road.