Heritage Crime: Glasgow team gets £1m grant to study illegal trade in antiquities

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This looks like a useful project. It is about time we had some properly collected data.

Every year, artefacts and antiquities of cultural significance are looted and smuggled around the world, often turning up in private collections or even museums [...] Now, a team at Glasgow University has been awarded a £1m grant from the European Research Council to study the illegal trade in antiquities. Researchers will spend the next four years gathering and analysing data on the movements and motives of traffickers, the types of activities involved, such as illegal excavation; transit and purchase; and pricing structures. The aim is to develop new approaches to regulate the international trade of cultural goods and help policymakers better define laws to fight criminal activities

Significantly, this project will be headed by criminologist Dr Simon Mackenzie, who has written a number of important papers on the legislation of cultural property protection. He says that looting is "widespread":

"There are architectural sites and museums that are being looted all over the world, including Britain and the USA, but obviously more so in the developing world. Previous safe areas have become accessible and the material is saleable. Nowhere is safe." Mackenzie said it is impossible to estimate how much the trade is worth, and the research will try to follow the money trail from the international markets back down the line to those who take the objects from their original site. [...] Mackenzie said the trade is helped by the fact that it is often hard to confirm the provenance of a specific object, and those involved have become adept at covering their tracks. [...]

As a result of the mechanisms operating along the global chain of supply from the archaeological record to the dealer and to the collector's home, cultural objects which are criminal at source take on the appearance of legitimacy by the time they reach market destinations. The project will examine this process. Among the research techniques used in Professor Mackenzie’s study, the team will conduct interviews and observations along known global trade routes for antiquities in order to understand how the illicit objects travel around the world. Professor Mackenzie said: “This funding will ensure that the research team are able to undertake a sustained and deep investigation of this transnational market and to compare its routines and laws to other transnational criminal markets like the traffic in drugs, wildlife and arms.”
Neil Brodie is also quoted. He pointed out that the market is driven by availability, dealers are active in creating markets for what they've got their hands on. The efforts of coin dealers (with for example the "Ancient Coins for Education" projects) are transparently clear to anyone who looks over their shoulders. The same applies to the rest of the antiquities market. Brodie says:

"The people who sell this material they are actively wanting to create markets. If it becomes possible, for instance, to dig up rock art in the deep Sahara, they will be promoting that; they will actively create a market for it. There is a synergy between the accessibility and the availability of the material, and the marketability by the dealers. The internet has made that a lot easier." The buyers of looted artefacts have also changed, says Simon Mackenzie, from those with an understanding of art and antiquities to those with money in search of a status symbol. "People have become more casual consumers; people with money are more interested in buying art without caring [where it is from]. It has moved away from more artisanal consumerism, which may explain why people are not so concerned about the provenance of the object."
Neil Brodie is dismayed at the television dramas and sitcoms that feature antiquities as part of the décor, as if it is desirable to have such objects in your home. People should understand, he said, that the illegal trade in antiquities can damage not just specific sites, but a nation's cultural heritage.[...] If these sites are just dug out or destroyed it weakens their cultural identity; groups that have been politically oppressed and whose political and cultural identity are intertwined. You have to protect archaeological and cultural sites; they are quite crucial."

Let us wish the new research team success in their efforts and hope it will bear fruit in some clearer and authoritative guidelines what needs to be done to bring the relevant legislation out of the 1960s, '70s and '80s to something more suited to the current state of the market.


The research will take part over the next four years and will require an interdisciplinary approach, covering criminology, archaeology, law, anthropology, cultural studies, international relations, politics, economics and development studies.


Kirsty Scott, 'Glasgow team gets £1m grant to study illegal trade in antiquities', The Guardian Scotland Blog, 13 February 2012.
STV Local 1, 'Glasgow academic to research illegal trade of historical artefacts', February 2012.


Photo: Metal Detectors are used a lot in Looting (photo: Linda Nylind/Guardian), Glasgow University

Old Coin Collection Found - under a Road

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One news item, just out, for the Coineys. They are so keen to point out that their hobby ('avocation') of collecting dugup ancient coins and artefacts has its roots in Renaissance and Enlightenment antiquarianism. They therefore want to want to establish a position of prestige with regard to archaeology which they see as a younger (daughter) discipline, but also to point out that dugup ancient coins on the market today "could have been" on the market for centuries and not recently looted items. This of course does not take into account three factors, the growth in numbers of collectors in the days when the population of the western world as a whole was much less than today, the growth in popularity of the hobby, and that artefacts have been dropping out of the 'pool' of those available on the market by mechanisms such as donation to public institutions and destruction or loss.

A recent find by archaeologists from West of Scotland Archaeology Service (WoSAS) draws attention to the later mechanism. Five ancient coins were found in archaeological supervision of landscaping works conducted in Port Glasgow, Scotland in redeposited topsoil mixed with hardcore from the adjacent road surface. They were found along a grassed verge during the removal of turf and seem to have been brought to the site with material that was imported onto the site during road construction. We are not told, but I wonder whether these coins were not found during a metal detector survey of this deposit?

A point of interest is a deposit adhering to one side of each of the coins which appears to be glue or resin. This suggests to the excavator that they may have been mounted at some time, which in turn could suggest that they may represent part of a former private antiquity collection. "Two of the coins appear to be very similar, and while one has a resin deposit on the obverse, on the other the resin is on the reverse, suggesting that the intention may have been to display them side-by-side, which would support the interpretation that they form part of a collection". Three of the coins are "ancient Greek" in type, but the other two are Late Roman in type. The coins have a suspicious look to them however, they are of types that should have been struck in silver (and the corrosion products in the photo do not really look like corroded base silver should look). One of the Macedonian ones has what seems to be a casting flash on the edge while the third "Greek" coin has very flat relief undifferentiated from the background and a soapy look typical of the cast fake. It seems that the collector who acquired these items on the antiquities market at some time (we are not told at what date the soil layer was dumped) did not have a very discerning eye.

The excavators suggest it was part of the scattered collection of an "antiquary", but I think the possibility that they formed part of some teaching material used in a local school cannot be ruled out.

Scotland’s buried heritage looted by treasure hunters

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There is somewhat belated official concern that Scotland's archaeological heritage is being plundered by treasure hunters who fail to declare their finds in the national interest. In Scotland, any finds classed as treasure, including items such as axe heads and stone carvings as well as gold and jewels, must be declared to the Crown, which will pass them on to museums or other suitable collections for public display and study. Before any smartass but uninformed US coiney suggests it, Scotland awards finders full market value for finds added to the national collections like their English counterpart.

A report recently published by Crown officials admits what some archaeologists have been saying for ages, that there has been “serious under-reporting” of artefacts found by artefact hunters (Chris Watt, 'Scotland’s buried heritage looted by treasure hunters', Herald Scotland 17 Feb 2011):

Professor Ian Ralston, chairman of the Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel, said: “If you look at the amount of stuff found in Northumberland and Cumbria compared to the south of Scotland, there has to be a suspicion that there is a significant number of undeclared finds”. The problem is brought to light in the Scottish Treasure Trove annual report, published yesterday by the Queen’s and Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer.

The report points out that the difference between the English and Scottish system is that objects found by artefact hunters and collectors north of a line on a map are liable to be added to public collections in the public interest, while south of the line collectors can add the stuff to their own private collections. All the arguments about "metal detectorists" contributing to the common good by recovering items are shown to be nonsense by this situation, what it is about is not "saving the 'eritidge" but about making a personal collection. As Watt points out "with treasures (sic) remaining in the hands of finders, the scheme south of the Border is seen by some critics as selfish". Indeed it is, no doubt about it - but its not the only area of antiquity collecting and trading that places selfish self-interest above all other considerations, such as decency, honesty and respect of the law.

But look at this:

There are around 100 members of Scotland’s two metal detecting clubs, according to Alastair Hacket, secretary of the Edinburgh-based Scottish Detector Club, with at least 100 more who pursue the hobby independently. Numbers have risen in recent years thanks to high profile successes like that of David Booth, the novice from Stirling who found £1 million-worth of gold in 2009 on his first outing with his new metal detector. The safari park worker received a £462,000 reward.

Just 200 in the whole country? Or is the number closer to 2000?

Vignette: Not-the-'British'-flag.

Scotland Lacks Numismatic Expertise?

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I was interested in a comment at the end of the article by Chris Watt ('Scotland’s buried heritage looted by treasure hunters', Herald Scotland 17 Feb 2011) which indicates that numismatics is given low academic priority in Scotland:

Most discoveries in Scotland involve small artefacts like coins, but the Treasure Trove report warns that expertise in this area is now lacking due to the retirement of the country’s leading numismatist. The National Museums of Scotland has not replaced its coin expert, the report said, meaning that officials face the prospect of bringing a coin-dealer up from London to handle Scots finds.

Surely if there are no local numismatists capable of doing the job, it's probably easier to send batches down south. Does it have to be a dealer though? Why not knowledgeable collector (we are always being told by the coineys that there are such). Anyway in the majority of cases, can't this be done online these days? So the ACCG could help out too.

I suppose now we'll be hearing the coineys alleging that if the state gathers such finds for the public collections, this hinders the growth of coin collecting in Scotland, which deprives the nation of such expertise. I wonder though how many Scottish collectors are patrons of eBay and V-Coins regardless of what happens to local finds that are reported. And where do the finds that are not reported go? According to the coiney arguments, if the state takes them off finders reporting them, the rest must be melted down to create "tourist trinkets", eh?



Vignette: map for US collectors of dugup ancient coins who have difficulty in distinguishing "England" from "Britain". Scotland is the orangy bit at the top.

How Many "Metal detectorists" in Scotland?

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Generally trying to extract any meaningful information from the 'statistics' trotted out in Britain about artefact hunting and collecting is rather like banging your head against a brick wall. One of the points I have been making for years is that the propaganda of success figures like those in the PAS annual Reports only make sense if we know how many artefact hunters of what types (for there are several) are doing what where. It is blindingly obvious that the people who should be gathering these data are the body charged with liaison with them and which is required to report on progress. Well, since after a decade or so of that body not doing this and merely making stab-in-the-dark guesses (ones favourable to the propaganda of success story of course) I had to produce some information on it myself for something I was writing.

One of the areas I had difficulties with was Scotland , where "metal detecting" operates in somewhat different conditions than further south in the British Isles, and also the law on finds is different(NB, the area is not covered by the PAS). There is for example a paucity of metal detecting clubs compared with regions south of the border. If the proportions of metal detectorists to non-metal detectorists north of the border are the same as those south of the border, it would mean that there should be somewhere in the region of 850 active "metal detectorists" in Scotland. This has always seemed to me a rather high figure for a number of reasons. I was interested therefore to come across an estimate in a rather nicely written (apart from the dreadfully corny title) article ('Can you Dig it?') by journalist Peter Ross in the Scotsman on 25th July 2010. He does not give the source of the estimate, but for what it is worth, he says:

Hacket is a slender man of 61 in a baseball cap and jeans. He lives in Edinburgh and is secretary of the Scottish Detector Club. There are around 200 serious detectorists in Scotland, and a few hundred more for whom it is a passing fancy.

Now it may be that this is just a quote of the membership numbers of the Scottish Detector Club, the website of which does not give the number of members. But then there are, or have recently been, a number of other metal detecting clubs in Scotland:
The Scottish Artefact Recovery Group
The Scottish Searchers
Ayreshire Research Detector Group - no website
Antonine Metal Detectors Club - wot, no website?
Grampian Detectorists Club - defunct
Highland Historical Search Society
ICI MD Club - one connected with a place of work, now apparently defunct.

Is it in fact the case (given the difference between the two estimates) that in Scotland somebody "only intrested in the histry" is four times less prone to becoming an artefact hunter than in England and Wales? To what might this be attributed? The difference in the legislation abouyt what happens to finds? The absence of a PAS telling everybody what a wonderful thing it has we have people draining archaeological finds out of the archaeological record into scattered ephemeral personal collections? Or the fact that its so cold out most of the year that walking around a field for hours on end is less fun? Or perhaps Scottish people have in general a more responsible attitude to the archaeological record than those down south? What is clear is that however many of them there may be, they are less prone to forming themselves into clubs (and using the internet to propagate the hobby) than their southern counterparts.

More False Claims About the PAS: From Canada this Time.

Robert Kokotailo presents the Treasure Act of England and Wales as the best thing since sliced bread to wide-mouthed coineys on the Moneta-L list. This allows a free market so collectors can buy tonnes and tonnes of artefacts, "as long as hoard finds are reported to the treasure trove system first". I wonder how many years have to pass before these people comprehend the significant differences between the English Treasure ACT which as collectors they support and the Scottish Treasure TROVE system which they do not? The former came in 14 years ago.

Anyway the dealer goes on to tell his coiney audience about how he thinks the "Treasure Trove system" works, the usual simplifications leading to the conclusion: that this kind of state-supported treasure hunting including on archaeological sites is a win-win solution for everyone, especially dealers and collectors. Personally I disagree, for reasons which are (as far as I am concerned) adequately explained elsewhere in this blog.

Kokotailo claims "No illicit hoards means virtually no illicit digging [...] and what they basically have in England". No illicit digging in England. Two points, the digging over of known and newly-discovered archaeological sites in search of saleable collectables may not be (through an unarchaeological quirk of British law) illicit per se, it certainly is not from an archaeological point of view at all desirable, whether or not the treasure hunter reports some of what they take away. This is what I assume any archaeologist not working in partnership wth the PAS will tell you, I assume even in Canada too. This is what the laws which the "collectors' rights" lobbyists would like to see scrapped are instituted to guard against, the erosion of the archaeological record by uncontrolled digging in search of something to flog off. Instead of all nations on earth with an archaeological record worth preserving from this activity stooping to Britain's level and scrapping such protective leislation (and thus sanctions against it), perhaps it is England, Scotland and Wales that need to extend better preservation to what is left of their total archaeological record, rather than just a few localised bits of it? Rather like both Irelands do.

Secondly, how true is it that there is no "illicit digging" in Britain? The first point that need be made is that the problem does not begin and end whether it is (coin)"hoards" which are illicitly disturbed in search of saleable goods. All types of site, settlements, graves, temple sites, wrecks, are threatened. Any site that contains something that can be flogged off. Actually these days that virtually means any site, as most contain the sort of so-called "minor antiquities" that people at the other end of an internet connection will buy no- questions- asked (beyond "how much?"). Are there really no hoards being illegally dug up and illegally exported from Britain? Actually I do not think that is strictly true, I have seen coin finds on sale here in Poland for example, which on closer examination seem to have been from an unreported 'celtic' coin hoard.

The reason why Robert Kokotailo thinks there is no looting is because:

The finders are compensated for the finds no matter if they end up in the hands of the state, or of collectors. In theory a hoard might be sold illicitly, but the seller will gain nothing over what he would get by playing the rules, so there is no point in doing so, thus in England the problem of illicit hoards nearly does not exist.

Hmm. The first point is that there is the opinion in British metal detecting circles that the Treasure Valuation Committee does not always assess the value of Treasure finds adequately to the expectations of the finder. Whether or not that is so is immaterial, it would affect the degree to which a finder is willing to surrender a find to them rather than attempt to sell it. The second thing is the Treasure award is a long time coming, while Treasure finds can be cashed in by illicit means more immediately. Thirdly, the process involves going into court and answering questions on the circumstances of the find. Some metal detectorists - a milieu, like collectors in general, jealously guarding their identities and private doings from outside scrutiny - might have objections to this. Fourthly, and most importantly, going through the Treasure system means the finder sees only half the value, because the proceeds are customarily split with the landowner. This fact is almost never highlighted by the "Collectors' rights" lobbyists when they talk of finders receiving market value. They do not. Fifthly, going through the official channels, the finder pays taxes on this income (or if they pay alimony, these earnings may be taken into account in assessing payment rates). Selling finds off by other means gives the possibility of hiding this income from the authorities. Sixthly, artefact hunters are collectors, they delight in the find itself, and may not want to lose it, no matter how much cash they would be offered in recompense. That's six reasons which Kokotailo seems to ignore why some finders might feel they lose out if they go through official channels, and which would provide a temptation to bypass the Treasure process if they find an item which falls within its remit, even in England. So far in those 14 years there has been just one case of a prosecution for not reporting a Treasure find, and that was a case within the past year (discussed on this blog). In reality British law is pretty toothless against those involved in illicit activities with antquities.

Mr Kokotailo is stretching things when he says that all these hoards reported under the Treasure Act have meant that "British numismatic studies have reach the highest point ever under this system". In fact most of the hoards that have been reported under this system, whether acquired by a museum, or dispersed on the market subsequently, have never been properly published. The gain to knowledge is thus not actually so great as collectors try to make out.

But of course it is not the facts about teh PAS and treasure system that count, it is the myth. The myth of some collectors' shangri-la, a paradise which the dealers and collectors of the ACCG are trying to build on Earth by fair means or foul.

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"Succinctly contrasts", but Mr Giedroyc gets it terribly wrong again

According to an ACG-affiliated coin collector writing on Moneta-L, the latest article (Iron Age Coin Find Ruled Treasure Trove) of Numismaster's master numismojournalist Richard Giedroyc of World Coin News "succinctly contrasts the real effect of England's Treasure Act with that of the laws of other countries"... (yawn). Sadly this assessment is a trifle overenthusiastic: the article is actually a poorly-researched heap of misleading nonsense.

When, oh when will American collectors and their mates learn the NAME of the Act which so appeals to them? Wickham Market is near the bottom on the left of that green bit across the water called "England", and the lumpier bit with the jaggedy edges at the top is another country called "Scotland". Scotland has legislation on Treasure Trove, England has....? England has, Mr Giedroyć, the 1996 Treasure Act. I don't expect it makes much difference to him. Not when he writes:

Suffolk Coroner Dr. Peter Dean declared the find to be treasure since the coins are more than 300 years old and were likely buried to be hidden with the intent to recover them later rather than being lost by their owner. [....] If, due to the nature of the find, the items found are determined to have been lost by chance, the finder takes possession of these items.

What? I suspect the influence of the 1965 Readers Digest Book of Buried Treasure here. That's the old law that went out in 1996! Thirteen years ago. What the Monetan correspondent finds so valuable (and yes, succinct) is this bit I presume:

At a time when countries such as Greece, Italy and Turkey have been enforcing laws banning the export of antiquities as being the cultural patrimony of these countries, the British treasure trove laws become even more relevant on the world stage as an example of how treasure finders can be encouraged to "do the right thing."

(Polite) words fail me, what has the Treasure Act got to do with "export"? Nothing, actually. Chalk and cheese. The English Treasure Act of course retains for the state these items "as being the cultural patrimony of the country" just as much as the laws of Greece, Turkey and Italy. Also Mr Giedroyc, instead of relying on ACCG handouts for information really should look into (for example) Greek heritage law concerning finds. He might find a surprise there. But then does he really mean Britain's (so that's Scotland then) Treasure TROVE laws? Because according to these, there is no division into "shiny gold/silver for the state - all the rest, who cares?" (which is I presume the wonder of the English legislation for the external collector of bronze coins and other decontextualised geegaws). No, in Scotland, the State wants to get its hands on all archaeological finds as it regards them all as the cultural patrimony of its citizens.

This article is sadly perfectly typical of the sort of shoddy research that goes into the anti-preservationist wafflings of the pro-collecting lobby, and which members of the latter propagate among collectors and try to foist off on the general public, totally misinforming them. Let's see if any well-informed Monetan queries the account of the workings of the English Treasure Act given in the article recommended to them so highly.

ADDENDUM 19th Aug: well it seems none of them noticed. So much for their knowledge of the laws which apply to their hobby which they like to portray as a scholarly "discipline".

What is illegal artefact hunting in the UK?

The publication after a long delay of the so-called nighthawking survey raises a number of questions. Not least what on earth it was investigating. We can understand that it was not intended that the authors look at the illegal handling of portable antiquities as a whole (of which the United Kingdom has a totally deserved reputation as a hotbed) but only the search for collectables and saleable commodities in the UK’s archaeological record in violation of Britain’s all-too-lax laws. Fair enough. But the definition we are offered is incomplete. We are told “Illegal metal detecting is the search and removal of antiquities from the ground using metal detectors without the permission of the landowners or on prohibited land such as Scheduled Monuments. It is a form of theft and can be prosecuted under the Theft Act”.

Firstly, not all artefact hunting goes on with metal detectors. Those who illegally dig holes in stratified archaeological deposits on the foreshore for example use spades and sieves. Flint collectors denuding sites in national parks and other protected areas use only their eyes. A whole area of illegal activity is largely ignored in this report because it does not involve “metal detectors”. The debate on artefact hunting and collecting in Britain has become highjacked by the protagonists of the “metal detecting debate” which has clouded the central issues.

There is little attention paid however to another aspect of the problem (odd because it does involve to a large part the use of metal detectors in the UK), and that is violations of the law in Scotland. In Scotland artefact hunting is subject to more or less the same constraints in the field as south of the border. Scottish law imposes on the artefact hunter another condition to comply with the law. They are obliged to report their finds and hand them over to the Treasure Trove Unit for assessment and eventual acquisition for state collections. Taking objects from the archaeological record merely to collect them oneself or sell them is an illegal act which is depleting Scotland’s archaeological resource as much as any trespassing on a landowner’s property south of the border. The Oxford archaeology report hardly considers this issue, a whole area of loss to Britain's archaeological record is ignored in its statistics.

The label "nighthawks" is singularly unhelpful. As the report says not all illegal artefact hunting takes place at night and not all responsible legal artefact hunting takes place in the day. In fact three totally different phenomena are being lumped under this one totally inadequate term, and each has its own dynamics and remedies

1) Artefact hunting on sites protected by law (for example scheduled archaeological sites/historic monuments). The reason for the extra scale of protection is that they contain archaeological evidence known to be of national importance. Most of the people doing this know full well that the site is important, and at best they do not care whether it is protected by law or not. Are there people in the artefact hunting community who are unaware that in general there is such a thing as a site protected by law? I would think that very unlikely. There is the problem that one flat bit of a field looks the same as another and the boundaries of a scheduled area might be difficult to determine. That at least is the excuse of some that have been caught on a site with a metal detector.

2) Artefact hunting on a site where the seeker has not permission to be. In English law (whether or not its a good idea or not is debatable) it is the landowner who has stewardship of the natural and historical resources of his land and who is encouraged by various means to conserve them. It is their decision whether or not to allow a collector onto their land with the purpose of seeking archaeological collectables for entertainment and profit. Sometimes the landowner is only too eager to get a bit of the "profit" themselves (for example commercial artefact hunting "rallies"). It may be argued that some trespassers are hard core criminals out to steal, while others might be slightly dense individuals genuinely unaware that they are on private property - or who precisely they have to ask (and cannot be bothered to find out). They may feel "no harm is done" by them taking away a few bits of corroded metal when the farmer is not looking.

3) The artefact hunter will be committing an illegal act if they find something and not declare it as the law requires. In some cases it might be greed, a "finders-keepers" type situation, they do not want to surrender "their" find, because the state may take it away (actually to place in a public collection). Or it may be that they genuinely do not know they are obliged to report the find.

These are six separate situations in which artefact hunting is in conflict with Britain's liberal antiquity laws. It will be seen that three of them are due to lack of awareness while three rflect lack of concern. In the latter the people concerned regard themselves as above the law.

It is obvious that the solution to each of these six is going to be different, in some cases outreach and information campaigns may go a long way to solving the problem, in others its probably a waste of time, the hard core law breakers not only laugh at their responsible fellows for following the PAS line, but the latter often feel physically threatened by them (the Oxford team found there was a great resistance in the "detecting" community - including the NCMD - to run the risk of being seen to be informing on the law breakers) . There is no way that more "fluffy bunny" patting on the head will actually have any effect on the criminal element in the artefact hunting community.

The label "nighthawks" embodied in the brief of this report is more of a hindrance than a help to defining concepts, problems and remedies.

The scale of Illegal artefact hunting in Scotland

We are promised that very soon the report on illegal artefact hunting in the UK (the so-called "Nighthawking Survey") will be published. Some results have been leaked which sound a bit dubious, so we are all eager to see the basis for these remarks.

The publication in Scotland of a Code of practice about Treasure trove in Scotland sets out the obligations of finders of archaeological artefacts (more than 300 years old) in that country. As everybody with a metal detector in the UK knows - or should know, Scotland has different laws to England and Wales (and Northern Ireland differs from both). It's not too confusing however as all archaeological finds must, by law, be reported when they may be retained by the crown (whose property they are, in which case the finder gets a reward and the finds go to a public collection) or released back to the finder to do with as they please. To engage in the latter without going through the former formality is illegal. Anyone failing to declare a find risks a potential prison sentence. That's what every metal detectorist in Scotland (and people buying artefacts from them) should know.

The Treasure reports show that annually about 300 or so finds are reported to the Treasure Trove Unit in Edinburgh. There are however in Scotland probably around 1000 metal detectorists - so it seems pretty clear that by no means are all of them obeying the law. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, most of them seem to be practicing their hobby totally disregarding the law, and disregarding the right of their fellow citizens to have access to information about the past which they want to take away in tangible pieces.

A newspaper account about the new code (Julia Horton Treasure hunters urged to read the rules before seeking their fortune, The Herald, February 04 2009) asserts that "up to 10,000 objects including silver coins and jewels are now found each year", meaning that the 300 reported items are a mere token of what is disappearing from the archaeological record annually in Scotland too. That is despite the very clear laws. That is despite the outreach that has been done to tell artefact hunters of their obligations. That is despite Scottish metal detectorists not being uneducated toothless peasants who know-no-better living in villages "each of which has its own melting pot" to which to take the metal scrap scavenged off the fields by subsistence diggers as some apologists for the "no-questions-asked" antiquities market would have us believe is the situation in all the "source countries".

The reaction to this news on a US metal detectorists' forum was revealing: A certain "Emdees" writes: Yikes! Hope they never do that in the U.S.! and a "RickO" replied...Try as I may, I will never understand this....my belief is that found items belong to the finder - period. Hmmm. Still, over most of the US there's not much chance of metal detectorists coming across too many metal artefacts older than 300 years, is there? I suspect that this is part of the problem US collectors have understanding attitudes of those of us who actually live and work in the "source countries" of the collectables they covet.