The Lesson of Torchesk

 

                   2026 screenshot (after Sikorski)      

Jerzy Sikorski reports that at the EAA meeting in Athens, in a paper (read by Jens Schneeweiss) on work on the middle Dnipro region in Ukraine, a mention is made of the continuation of the monitoring by drone of the earthwork site at Ol'shanytsya in the southern Porossya area on the Ros' river (Torchesk) begun in 2021 ['Looking Over the shoulder of the 'Black Diggers' of Ukraine', PACHI Saturday, 4 December 2021]. While six years ago there were recorded traces of the digging of over 5000 holes there, apparently the total now is 16000+ and the plan shown at EAA indicates a shocking density of digging and destruction (compare with the 2021 one in my post). This is not only of significance in terms of the site itself and Ukrainian heritage protection in general, it raises the issue that this is (as far as I know, please correct me if I am wrong) a pioneering project, and if such monitoring were to be carried out of 'productive' sites elsewhere (England and Wales for example with the laissez faire legislation in place there) would it reveal a comparable level of destruction? It's easy to assume that "Ukraine is an exception" but how can we complacently assume that it is not? 

Also, if 21 days monitoring six years ago produced evidence of 5100 holes dug in that period, the whole post-harvest and spring metal detecting seasons would have involved even more hole-digging.  If c. 15.5k holes were dug in 2022 [when the war's Front came no nearer than 300km before retreating], 2023, 2024, 2025, and spring 2026, does this represent a slowdown? Could it be that awareness that the site was under intensive monitoring by drone slowed down the attacks of these culture-criminals? Are the young men who'd be searching the site now fighting the occupant? Or is there a feeling among detectorists that with all the searching that has gone on there, the site is largely "searched out" ?