Focus on Metal Detecting: Site-Wrecker Depth Detectors, Shh, Pretend You're not Interested

A while ago the metal detecting forums were all agog with details of the tests of the Blisstool LTC64 V3 and how powerful it seems to be. It apparently reaches depths that other machines cannot, while being cheaper than the equivalent Minelab GPX 5000 machines. Nowadays when most of the more accessible "productive" sites have been "hammered" depth has become even more of an obsession amongst detectorists, the easiest way to accumulate a personal collection or artefacts now is to get them from deeper and deeper layers of the searched site (Readers may remember that this is an issue that both this writer and heritage action have been urging that the PAS raise with policy makers, there is no sign that they actually have so). Anyhow Heritage Action have again raised the alarm about the proliferation of cheaper "depth advantage" machines ('A second open letter to the Heritage Forum'). No reaction from the heritage "professionals" but an interesting one from the metal detectorists. Over on the Detecting Wales forum the thread “Blisstool LTC64 V3 The Worlds Deepest Detector?” suddenly disappeared. It turns out that the thread had been  hidden by the site administrator and details can only be exchanged through the forum's private mail system. Just in case somebody's looking eh? Just in case somebody's looking and reach a conclusion about the way artefact hunting is going these days which detectorists would rather keep unsaid. 

Historic Discovery by the PAS, An Unknown Pope

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In their search for objects made of more precious metal, most treasure hunters tend to ignore archaeological artefacts made of lead discovered. Metal detectorist Alun Tussle from Gaer Diffymawr, Gwent was only prevented from putting a small disc of lead in his scrap pouch when he saw two faces peering out of the mud while metal detecting a Roman site in Caerleon near his home. When he got it home and washed it, he realised that it had writing on it and to find out whether he had found something valuable, he took it to his good friends, amateur historians Baran Blackheart and Callan Titwit (world-famous authors of "Britain's True History from Authentic Documents" and discoverers of the Holy Grail, grave of King Arthur and the Ark of the Covenant all within walking distance of their little town in South Wales). Realising at once the true significance of the object and where it was found, the two instructed him to take it to the Potable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to claim his reward.

 The region's Finds Liaison Officer Fionella Sloan-Squarre says "when Mr Tussle showed me what he'd got in his trouser pocket, I was flabbergasted. It is not every day that you see such a valuable item - historically, that is. I immediately phoned my bosses in London to inform them". Mr Tussle was disappointed to learn that despite the value of the find, which is purely historical, because the find is not gold or silver nor a hoard, he is not entitled to a reward. "It's not a about the money", he smiled wryly.

What Mr Tussle had found metal detecting in the southwest corner of the walled Roman town at Caerleon is what is known as a "papal bull". It is a lead seal that was placed on documents issued by the Papal Chancellery in and sent to dignitaries of the early Church. The representations on one side of two saints show St Paul and St Peter with the inscription SPA[ul] SPE[eter]. The reverse bearing the name of the issuer is what excited Blackheart and Titwit . It bears the name of ELEVTHERIVS, followed by the numeral "I" and the title PP [pontifex].

 As Ms Sloan-Squarre explained, reliable historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth make reference to an early mission to England sent by a Pope Eleutherus to King Lucius of Britain. William of Malmesbury records that he sent SS. Fugatius and Damianus (rather Dumianus or Duvianus) over to Britain. These missionaries baptized King Lucius and many others, and "the Britons enjoyed the light of faith in peace till the reign of Diocletian". Lucius therefore was the first Christian king in Europe.

 The problem is Bede (Hist. l. 1. c. 4) dates the mission to 167 when there was no Pope Eleutherus in Rome. The pontif in that year was Anicetus (150-167) and foreign historians say he was followed by Soter whose short pontificate was followed by that of Saint Eleuterus (Greek: Ελευθέριος), much later than the historical date of the conversion of Lucius. On these grounds, professional historians have attacked the validity of these earliest records of The True British History. Now, this new discovery rewrites history. It seems there were in fact two Popes called Eleutherius, the first of which was the one to whom Lucius had sent his embassy in 167, but he had later been written out of history in an effort to hide The True British History which made Britain the earliest Christian nation in Europe.

What is more, Blackheart and Titwit explain, the findspot shows that the Pope was sending letters to the bishops of Lucius in Caerleon, not London - so probably during the Roman occupation of the eastern parts of the Island, this small town now in Wales was the capital of all of Britain at the time.

Ms Sloan Squarre stresses that it seems once again, in partnership with the PAS, the discovery of an amateur proves the so-called "experts" totally wrong. "In a year when we’re all celebrating what it means to be British, finds like this made by amateur searchers show how they can reveal the hidden events that have shaped our past and made our great nation what we are today".

It is interesting to note that coins or medals of King Lucius were recorded by early collectors, such as one mentioned by Archbishop Usher (Antiq. Britain, c. 3, p. 22. Guthrie, Hist. of England, b. 1. ), and one by the French connoisseur Bouterue. They had been disregarded as fakes by professional historians but the discovery of the Caerleon Eletherius I bull suggests we should look at the issue of their authenticity again. The problem is nobody knows what has happened to these privately-owned items, they never made it down the ages to a public collection. No bulls of (Saint) Eleutherius II have so far been discovered, Mr Tussle is out in the fields of South Wales looking for them now.

UPDATE:
to better understand the context of this text, note that it was posted on April 1st (April Fool's Day). OK, too long and involved to be funny - better luck next year.

Photo: Potable Antiquities Scheme

Punishing Illegal Artefact Hunting in England and Wales

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This is what happened to the car of a metal detector user caught red-handed illegally looking for artefacts on a site protected by law. A court ruled his motor was to be crushed following his sentencing. A Judge at Cloud Cuckton Crown Court ordered that the Audi A3 belonging to defendant 21-year old Barry Thugwit, of Lower Darkmess, Barsettshire be forfeited when he was sentenced to three years in prison last month. He had previously admitted metal detecting on protected sites using the car on three occasions between June 21 and 24 of this year. The vehicle, which was seized following his arrest, was handed to the police after the order from court and a decision was made to crush it. Detective Inspector Lancelot Goodguy, who ran the operation that led to the arrest of Mr Thugwit, said: “This car was used to facilitate the metal detecting and was forfeited to the police by the judge. By crushing it we are sending out a very clear message to others that we will not tolerate culture crime Barsettshire".

Source: Bedfordshire on Sunday, 'Ever wondered what happens to a drug dealer's car? Judge sends out a clear message that this is a crime that will not be tolerated',20/11/2011 (slightly amended).

Meanwhile in wilder Wales, metal detector users seem more prone to use other methods to deal with the 'black sheep' in the metal detector-using artefact hunting community. Such is their feeling of a bond with 'their' sites, that they declare publicly that they are willing take the law into their own hands to punish offenders without involving law enforcement. According to one "Detecting Wales" list member, people were suspected to be artefact hunting a hoard findspot by night and without the permission of the (hunting-shooting-and-fishing) landowner:

They were spotted by the game keeper who has night vision glasses. I think I will join him on a night time hunt, see who it is. I should be able to spot them, in the light of their burning car.

The use of violence among metal detector using artefact hunters in competition for access to 'productive sites' is an aspect which I wonder if Felicity Winkley will be covering in her NCMD-backed survey of the attitudes of metal detector using artefact hunters "to landscape and objects' findspots".

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The "Chamelon Antiquities" Supplier Game

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"Hi Group", blithely warbles your friendly internet dealer "Alex" [Alex Stanichev, Winettka, United States]:

Here is the link to all the fine ancient coins and artifacts ending soon. http://stores.ebay.com/cameleoncoins-and-artifacts

Let us have a look, and perhaps we can play a game. The dealer does not for a single one of these items give any information about the place it "surfaced". The buyer is expected obviously to part with his money no-questions-asked. Which ones of them (including the fakes) could not have come from a heavily looted country like Bulgaria and adjacent regions of the Balkans and Danubian limes? (Stanichev is a Bulgarian name - there is a famous politician with the same surname at the moment). Do the ones for which such a source is not likely fall into any sort of a group?

Most of these so-called "minor antiquities" offered by "Cameleon" are of metal (copper alloy mostly), how are they located and gathered up? Cameleon coins and artefacts has for a long time specialised in supplying the so-called "minor antiquities market" with complete pottery and glass vessels all of Roman date. Where can one most frequently dig up complete Roman pottery and glass vessels? Ask an archaeologist.

How are these objects getting into (UNESCO 1970 Convention member state since 1983) the United States of America? Ask the US Customs. The choice of name "Chameleon" may not be accidental. How come they (like the products of a dozen or so gentlemen of the Trade with similar commodities) have been openly sold under the noses of US archaeologists on EBay under that name since the end of March 2004? Ask US archaeologists. The AIA supports an MOU with a country like Bulgaria now, but we'd all like to know what active public outreach they had been doing before that about the open no-questions-asked sale of material like this in the long years of the open sale of material like this under their noses.

Vignette: Ćmielów chameleon.

CPAC Comments: Lost for Words? A How-to Guide for Conservationists (and coineys)

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[I vowed never to get involved in another US MOU campaign, it costs me too many nerves and personally, as I have said many a time, I do not believe the US are using the 1970 UNESCO Convention in any laudable way. However the fact that this next one is one I have long dreamt of, the looting of archaeological sites in Bulgaria is a something I take very personally, and has historical connections with the rise of the US "minor antiquities" trade, it seems I cannot ignore this].

In my analysis of the coiney contributions to the debate yesterday, it became clear that virtually none of them actually addressed the issue at hand and this is because they were to a large extent cutting and pasting (if only mentally) from the [I now think deliberately] misleading propaganda given out by the dealers and their lobbyists.

So after being pretty negative about the coineys, I thought a positive contribution would be to give the people on my side of the fence something to help them put together something addressing the same issues. There is of course no reason why coineys cannot use this too, to make sure that they are addressing the actual issues in hand, please feel free, let's get some proper debate going on in place of the sad apology for one propagated by the ACCG and Moneta-L and their ilk.

In the public notice, comments were specifically and exclusively requested on Section 303 (a) 1 A-D of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 U.S.C. § 2602, pursuant to which the Committee must make findings. This Act is pretty badly written as prose and its layout and section numbering are tragic, but not too many minutes work suffice to untangle it. But some people are too busy to do that, so I thought it might help somewhat if I set out the main issues it raises and some guidelines to what one might consider saying in response. I am going to use Bulgaria as the example, but please use this to write a similar response for Belize too. Show the world you care.

Let us start off by noting:

(a) there is no "conspiracy",
(b) the aim is not to stop "collecting" but to halt at the US border, as far as is possible, the import of archaeological material and ethnographic objects which have been illicitly exported from Bulgaria [including, as far as possible, those cynically 'laundered' by being sent via other countries - such as Dubai],
(c) the United States has been a state party of the 1970 UNESCO Convention for 28 years, and according to article 3 of the Convention, any such transactions were all that time (and are) illicit in terms of the Convention (a fact most coineys conveniently ignore).
(d) for the same reason (190 countries are states parties) there is no "discrimination" here. The US is simply implementing the Convention it accepted in September 1983.
(e) the Act is intended to implement the Convention for all types of cultural property covered by the term "archaeological material and ethnographic items", most of the comments to the CPAC have concerned excluding one type of archaeological material (collectable numismatic material) from its scope. There is no authority for that either in the text of the Convention or the CCPIA.

Section 303 (a) asks (in fact, the US President) five questions. Let's go through them in detail.

303 (a).1A: Is the cultural patrimony of Bulgaria in jeopardy from pillage? Sadly, the archaeological sites of almost all (if not all) countries which have a 'productive' archaeological record are subject to this threat. Tragically this applies particularly to Bulgaria where whole sites such as the Roman city of Ratiaria (look it up on this blog) have been stripped on an industrial scale to produce "minor" artefacts and coins which have been OPENLY sold on the US market through internet shops and auction sites (eBay in particular - there's quite a bit about that on this blog too) for year after year with nothing being done about it by UNESCO-Convention-state-party the United States of America. How many arrests have there been in the US for this in the past twenty years? Yes, the cultural patrimony of Bulgaria is indeed in jeopardy from pillage, and much of it done by looters affiliated with criminal groups who organize the transport of the loot to foreign markets (Shentov, O., Todorov, B. and Stoyanov, A. 2007, 'Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends', Sofia, Center for the Study of Democracy - this thought-provoking report figures the antiquities trade alongside trade in drugs, prostitution and human trafficking, and vehicle thefts).

Coineys: here you have to answer "no, the archaeological heritage of Bulgaria is not in peril because of looting", but you are on your own justifying that in the face of all the evidence, and what the Bulgarian authorities are now saying in submitting this request. Also it seems to me you would have to come up with some pretty hard evidence to trump the conclusions of the Bulgarian archaeological authorities monitoring these sites lying behind this request.

303 (a).1B: Has Bulgaria taken measures consistent with the Convention to protect it?

It should be noted that the CCPIA refers ONLY to measures consistent with the context of the Convention which it implements. The Convention has a number of articles devoted to what states parties should do to protect the cultural patrimony of its territory. Bulgaria complies with the following: Art. 2, 1-2; Art 3, Art. 4, Art 5 (which the US has not); Art. 6 (which the US has not); Art 8; Art. 9 (it has just done so, please also note the obligations of the US already now invoked at the end of that article!); Art 10 (a) and (b); 14 (despite the typical economic difficulties common to most states in that regard, and we know the US also has its own problems there with regard the preservation of the archaeological heritage from looting)
[Articles 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 do not apply to this question, articles 16 onwards to the state party's relations to UNESCO - equally irrelevant here]Coineys: here you have to answer "no, Bulgaria taken measures consistent with the Convention to protect its archaeological", and give your reasons for saying so. Please though distinguish between intent and effect. The Bulgarians have for decades been faced with political difficulties and financial restraints, and criminal gangs with bulldozers and a lot of determination to profit from a lucrative market. Should their cultural heritage be penalised (stolen by outsiders) because of it?

303 (a).1C (i): Would the application of the import restrictions proposed be of substantial benefit in deterring a serious situation of pillage?
The ACCG claims that there are 50000 collectors of dugup coins in the US. ACCG officer, coin dealer Dave Welsh asserts confidently that it is "credibly estimated that roughly half of all ancient coin collectors in the world reside and half of the world's numismatic trade is carried on" in the United States. If true, that obviously means that if illicit exports can be prevented from getting to this half of the market, this would cut down the profits that ensue from such an activity. Most of the other countries of the other half of the market are already parties of the Convention and the sale of illicitly-exported archaeological artefacts is already illegal there (for example Britain with its 2003 Dealing in Cultural property (Offences) Act). Obviously vigorously prosecuting these policies in each of these state parties (Convention Art 3 and 13a-b) will substantially reduce the possibilities of smuggled goods finding a market.

Coineys: here you have to answer "no, the application of the import restrictions proposed will not deter a serious situation of pillage", and then trot out the old argument that it has never been proven that no-questions-asked collecting actually has any relationship to looting. I doubt whether the CPAC will accept that, but you can try.

[303 (a).1C (i) additional point: "if applied in concert with other nations having a significant import trade in such material" other nations already have legislation rendering trafficking in illegally and illicitly exported items of this nature illegal. While it is true that with no-questions-asked one can buy such material in countries such as the UK and Germany, it is not, in fact, legal to do so (see here, point 2 - the lawyer has not yet provided the list of countries). It is like driving faster than the speed limit, staying parked longer than the time limit, or jaywalking, you can do it, and generally nothing happens - unless you are caught doing it.]

303 (a).1C (ii): Are there available (to Bulgaria or the USA) other measures less drastic that would achieve the same aim?

Well, what is proposed is that US customs look at the paperwork concerning export of certain types of cultural property. That is hardly "drastic", it's what customs officers are for - to check that what is coming into a country complies with the law. In this case, articles 3 and 13a of the 1970 Convention should be being applied by the customs services and border guards of the US as a state party of the Convention since September 1983 in the case of cultural property from all other countries party to the Convention. Is there anything less "drastic" than customs officers taking more care to do what customs officers should be doing anyway? Once again, it is worth stressing, in terms of the CCPIA, articles with kosher paperwork pass through without a hitch and dealers and other importers should be encouraged (Art 6c, 7b, 10a and 13a) to strive for kosher paperwork.

Coineys have in the past suggested that a "less drastic" measure would be to have the source nations set up something which they characterize as "like the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme and Treasure Act" which would allow lots of artefacts to enter the market licitly - in other words simply redefining what is "pillaging/ looting". Apart from the fact it is not their place to imperialistically tell other sovereign nations what they "should" do to suit US collectors, this is irrelevant. The setting up of such schemes and attendant legislation are not within the scope of the measures covered by a Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property. What we are talking about here is export controls. The home of the PAS and Treasure Act, the UK, has quite stringent export controls on all dug-up archaeological material. A collector buying fresh dugup coins from Great Britain which have been exported without an export licence is committing an act as illicit as if they came from Greece or Bulgaria(and those coins too should have been stopped at the US border). The PAS and Treasure Act do not create an "export free-for-all", and certainly do nothing to protect the sites of England and Wales from looting by artefact hunters.

303 (a).1D: Would the application of these measure be consistent with the general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes?Obviously, yes. The large-scale importing of stolen and illegally exported cultural property by one country from another - while no doubt profitable for individuals - is not in the general interest of the international community. This, surely, is particularly the case when it seems it encourages or facilitates international criminal activities. Stopping the traffic in illegally exported cultural property would not have any negative impact on the "general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes" since this can surely be satisfied better through mutual licit and legal interchange of such items through the legal art market, museum loans, travelling exhibitions and other means. we should bear in mind that the Bulgarians themselves are part of the international community.
Coineys would have to show that curbing the large-scale importing of stolen and illegally exported cultural property by one country from another is not in the general interest of the international community, and that this would have a wholly negative impact on the "general interest of the international community in the interchange of cultural property among nations for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes". You are on your own there.

So that is five relatively simple questions that the CPAC is currently asking for some public comment on. The answers seem relatively straightforward. Given the scale of the damage already inflicted on the accessible parts of the Bulgarian archaeological heritage through the no-questions-asked buying of the ancient coins dug up by the bucketful from Bulgarian sites, I think the CPAC owe it to the international community to recommend the President apply import restrictions on archaeological artefacts (and let us not forget the ethnographic material - where stolen icons must probably figure highly on the list of priorities) as soon as practically possible. Let it also roundly condemn those that want to continue the disgusting bulk trade in freshly dugup archaeological material like this no-questions-asked.
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Vignette: How to...

Another Way UK Landowners Can be Cheated Out of More Money by Artefact Hunters

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A while back a British metal detectorist was demanding from a blogger a copyright fee for some pictures that he or she had used. The sum requested was surprisingly high for some scrappy artefact shots with poor lighting and no scale. He was demanding £500 each for them, and justifying this by claiming that this was the price he had routinely been getting from magazines for this type of photo.

This raises the question of whether landowners are aware of this when they sign finds agreements with metal detectorists. Most of these documents do not go into much detail about the financial responsibilities of the artefact hunter after he takes the collectables home. Heritage Action has pointed out that these agreements seldom contain clauses concerning division of the profit should a collector subsequently sell an item received as a gift from the landowner (whose property it is). This is significant when a single Roman brooch or buckle is valued in the "what's it worth?" page of metal detecting magazines at several tens of pounds, let a detectorist sell six or eight of them and he can pocket several hundred pounds a sale. Surely it is clear that the landowner should be aware of the profit the detectorist is making on items he took away for next to nothing and their own rights in the matter.

Now an additional factor is added to the equation. If a detectorist who does not sell the finds taken makes photos of them and then charges magazines and others £500 for the use of each one of them, even for non-commercial purposes, then obviously these proceeds should be being split with the landowner too. By such means a landowner somewhere should be getting £250 for each photo of an artefact which appears in a metal detecting magazine or newspaper article, and probably also for each shot of a metal detectorist on his land. Do they? If landowners make so much money from the photographic rights sold by finders, why does this source of income not figure on a single 'model landowners' agreement' published online? Are metal detectorists maintaining a silence about the profits they make in this area in the hope that landowners never find out?

British metal detectorists loudly protest that they are "not in it for the money", but it is quite clear that some of them waste no opportunity to find ways of making money from their hobby, what however is disreputable is when it seems this takes place with the wool being drawn over the eyes of landowners. The more detectorists who try to take advantage of a landowner's ignorance of the true market value of the finds they release and their goodwill, the more suspicious landowners will become towards the motives of the milieu as a whole. Probably with good reason in certain cases.

Holy Land Antiquities Robbers Caught Red Handed

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In the Elah Valley near Beit Shemesh, antiquities robbers were reportedly caught red-handed by the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Theft in the Israeli Antiquities Authority while digging at an archaeological site, where they were attempting to plunder archaeological finds for sale. It is aleged that the three men had dug a pit 3 m deep through archaeological layers. They were reportedly equipped with various digging implements and a metal detector with which they hoped to locate and steal ancient coins and other saleable items.

According to archaeologist Alon Klein, who commanded the operation, the gang had been digging in at least three other sites that all contain Jewish artifacts from the 2nd Temple, up to 70 C.E. and Bar-Kochba Rebellion, ca. 132 C.E. periods. These criminals had specialized in identifying and discovering these sites. "They came on foot from a distance of many kilometers and remained in Israeli sovereign territory illegally, then fell upon the antiquities sites without mercy and caused terrible damage," according to Klein. "I am pleased that we managed to catch this gang and stop the vandalizing of our historical heritage. The robbers don't care at all about history, they are merely searching for the findings in order to sell them to the highest bidder on the market."

Hebrew site, 'Antiquities Robbers Caught Red Handed' Arutz Sheva, 06/14/2011 - which is also the source of the upper vignette (if that is their hole, where is the spoil heap?).

What the Dealers will not Admit About the Source of their "Minor Antiquities"

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I suggested readers might like to assess the remarks of coin dealer Sayles in the post above. Let us also remember previous attempts by coin dealers like Dave Welsh to claim that the coins that are sold on the US market do not come from archaeological sites at all. Before people accept that, I'd like them to think about some real examples of the antiquity trade in action. I'd like them to look at dealers like Empire Danny in Cordova, TN United States. I've discussed him before (here, here, here and here) , and since that time he has been busily selling off his stuff, week after week.

[Now the material obviously of Balkan origin is mixed with a much greater number of "Viking" artefacts coming from around the Gulf of Finland/Ladoga area than earlier. (He is obviously strengthening his contacts with the gentlemen from the former Soviet Union - but the question is "which gentlemen", gentlemen from St Petersburg ones?)]

So this dealer has job lots of metal detected stuff alongside the material sorted into categories such as rings (sold individually as they are most often found whole) and other collectable items.

Here's what's left over after sorting:
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6701 US $119.00 ("These artifacts are guaranteed to be an authentic ground dug artifacts dating from Roman to possibly modern times, 100 to 1500 years old or older. These items are being sold UNCLEANED in "as found" condition. These items were found in the Balkans with a metal detector").
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6702 $116.29 ("These artifacts are guaranteed to be an authentic ground dug artifacts dating from Roman to possibly modern times, 100 to 1500 years old or older. These items are being sold UNCLEANED in "as found" condition. These items were found in the Balkans with a metal detector. I have viewed these items under a microscope to aid in authentication") Whoopee.
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6704 US $119.00
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6236 US $119.00
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 1679 US $129.00 ("These items are being sold UNCLEANED in "as found" condition This item was found in the Balkans with a metal detector").
Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6237 US $119.00


Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6706 US $119.00 ("These items were found in the Balkans with a metal detector").


Metal Detector Finds - HUGE LOT OF ARTIFACTS 6703 US $119.00 ("These artifacts are guaranteed to be an authentic ground dug artifacts dating from Roman to possibly modern times, 100 to 1500 years old or older. These items are being sold UNCLEANED in "as found" condition. These items were found in the Balkans with a metal detector. I have viewed these items under a microscope to aid in authentication").






Here's a turn-up for the books, the detectorists even collected metal-working waste and it got sent top the US and the dealer is flogging it off: METAL DETECTOR SILVER SLAG FINDS 3976 US $99.00 though with the proviso - should a collector decide to cash it in as bullion - "This artifact is guaranteed to be an authentic ground dug artifact. This lot weighs over 125 grams. I have not had any of these items tested for silver content. I am not sure that they are all silver, in fact, odds are some of them are not. This item was found in the Balkans. I have viewed this item under a microscope to aid in authentication".

Then another category Mr Danny and his business partners have been busily sorting out from the general run of partifacts are fibulae - categorised by whether they have pins preserved (or restored?) or broken. There's a price difference:
30 UNCLEANED ANCIENT FIBULAE FIBULA WITH PINS 5155 US $599.00 ("These fibulae were found in the Balkans").
LOT of 10 Ancient ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 4987 US $39.00 ("This item was found with a metal detector in the Balkans").
LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5122 US $279.00


LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5119 US $279.00

LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5117 US $279.00


LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5124 US $279.00
30 UNCLEANED ANCIENT FIBULAE FIBULA WITH PINS 5154 US $599.00 ("These fibulae were found in the Balkans. These fibulae are GUARANTEED to be AUTHENTIC ANCIENT ARTIFACTS").
30 UNCLEANED ANCIENT FIBULAE FIBULA WITH PINS 5160 US $599.00
30 UNCLEANED ANCIENT FIBULAE FIBULA WITH PINS 5159 US $599.00
LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5118 US $279.00
LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5120 US $279.00
LOT of 75 UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN FIBULAE FIBULA 5116 US $279.00

Then there are collectors of ancient weapons in the States, so the bulk material received from "Balkan" contacts has been searched to make up a:
Lot of 100 Authentic ANCIENT MEDIEVAL ARROWHEADS 5016 US $399.00

there are lots of rings on sale, usually picked out intact. Metal Detector Find - Lot of 15 "SILVER" RINGS 5392 $392.70

Or they can be sold in larger bulk lots for sorting by the purchaser: UNOPENED lot of 150 UNCLEANED ANCIENT FINGER RINGS 4832 $959.59 (note the number on the bag): The same seller has also loads of coins on sale, singly if they are nice, or bulk lots of several hundred "uncleaned". Here's something for everyone:
a lucky dip, packages of coins packed in opaque plastic bags:
250 UNOPENED UNCLEANED HIGHEST QUALITY ROMAN COINS $934.01
1000 UNOPENED UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN COINS $884.80


Then some bags were opened and sorted:
500 HIGH QUALITY UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN COINS 6292
US $799.00. "These coins are HIGH (middle) quality coins. I have tens of thousands of Roman coins in my store so check it out if you want a different (better) quality than these".
500 LOWER QUALITY UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN COINS 4316 $294.28
474 LOWER QUALITY UNCLEANED ANCIENT ROMAN COINS 4318 $280.50

Then some individual items picked out for separate sale, such as: Authentic ANCIENT Bronze GREEK COIN AE10 OWL ? 4630 $38.38
Bronze GREEK COIN AE36 PTOLEMY II Philadelphos 5458 $126.96
6 LARGE As / Dupondius Sized Ancient Roman Coins 6690 Buy It Now" $48.23

It just goes on and on. This seller has 2526 lots of antiquities on sale today. Some of them individually, some as job lots. Obviously the latter are amenable to purchase for the purpose of sorting, cleaning and restoring to put on the market again in smaller lots. So a lot of the minor artefacts sold through internet venues probably come one way or another from precisely such assemblages of material. And where do they come from?

To my mind, this illustrates very well how the minor market in antiquities functions. A bulk lot created by the removal of metal artefacts from the topsoil (where?) on an industrial scale with metal detectors is bought, perhaps direct from source, or perhaps through middlemen (such as German or Swiss intermediaries). It is then sorted through. In some of Empire Danny's photos the objects are shown on a table with a metal grid behind. One can imagine the items spread out on the latter, hosed and then dried before sorting. Numismatic items can be picked out, different artefacts that can be sold individually too. That leaves a whole load of partifacts which are also sold in bulk lots to those who like to puzzle out what the fragments came from. I imagine there were also a lot of shapeless pieces, some of which are included in the partifact lots, I imagine many more going for scrap.
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Le trafic des biens culturels dans le monde s'intensifie

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Tunisia, Egypt, Libya… The traffickers of stolen cultural goods dream of countries like this where instability reigns, but it is not only they that fall victim to this trade. In the era of the Internet, this illicit commerce, estimated by some to be worth as much as 6 billion dollars is accelerating. UNESCO raises the alarm (Martine Robert, 'Le trafic des biens culturels dans le monde s'intensifie', Les Echoes, 15th march 2011).

Il n'y a pas que le marché de l'art qui est prospère. Le trafic des biens culturels se porte bien, lui aussi. Selon Interpol, il représente annuellement 6 milliards de dollars. «La situation est alarmante, particulièrement dans les pays en proie à l'instabilité comme la Tunisie, la Lybie, et surtout l'Egypte», a déclaré, hier, Irina Bokova, directeur général de l'Unesco, à l'occasion du colloque que l'organisation internationale tient jusqu'à ce soir à Paris, dans le cadre du quarantième anniversaire de la convention, signée par 120 Etats, visant à lutter contre ce phénomène. Il s'agit, avec l'aide de l'Organisation mondiale des douanes, d'Interpol, de maisons de ventes aux enchères ou de musées, de tenter d'apporter de nouvelles réponses. Car, ces dernières années, Internet a accéléré le trafic, la Toile étant devenue le support d'un commerce très lucratif dans le trafic des biens culturels.

La convention adoptée il y a quarante ans établit les mesures à prendre pour interdire et empêcher l'importation, l'exportation et le transfert de propriété illicites des biens culturels. Elle évoque aussi la question des restitutions et offre un cadre de coopération international pour mieux combattre le trafic. Mais il revient à chaque pays de mettre en oeuvre la législation permettant de l'appliquer. De plus, cette convention traite surtout des relations entre Etats: elle a dû être complétée en 1995 par la convention Unidroit, plus stricte, qui implique également les acteurs privés. Malheureusement, celle-ci n'a été ratifiée quasiment par aucun des pays où les marchés de l'art sont les plus actifs.

Like the USA for example, which applies the 1970 UNESCO Convention in a highly selective manner (to a degree that one might legitimately ask whether they have actually implemented it at all). The application of the sort of measures envisaged by the UNIDROIT document is vehemently opposed by US dealers in dugup antiquities (such as in their Unidroit-L discussion list which is a mouthpiece for the naysayers). One might wonder why a supposedly legitimate business is concerned with measures intending to prevent the commerce in illicitly-obtained items. The answer to that question might tell the objective observer a lot about the current state of the antiquities market, might it not?

Existing measures are not as effective at stopping the haemorrhage of illicitly obtained artefacts onto the international market in its current form:

Plusieurs pays africains ont ainsi perdu plus de la moitié de leur patrimoine, aujourd'hui dispersé. Des centaines de statues du temple d'Angkor, au Cambodge, ont été arrachées. En Amérique centrale, les fouilles illégales se traduisent chaque mois par l'extraction d'au moins 1.000 pièces de céramique maya, d'une valeur de 10 millions de dollars. Et en Irak, 15.000 pièces du musée national de Bagdad ont été dérobées lors du dernier conflit, plus de la moitié étant toujours manquantes.

The question is are we just going to continue to shrug our shoulders and say with the British archaeological establishment that "looting is here to stay, if we can't beat them, let's make them our partners"? Is this something we can wait until somebody else does the work for the archaeological establishment (volunteer grassroots organizations like SAFE over in the US, and Heritage Action in the UK, or HAPAH in France)? Or are we going to try and alert public opinion to the problem and its scale and significance and try to curb this kind of erosive and destructive commercial exploitation of the archaeological record by making dealers and collectors socially accountable?

What part should Britain's PAS play in all this? What part can they play in all this while considering artefact hunters and collectors their "partners"? They rather have allowed themselves to a situation where they have their hands tied, haven't they? Listen, you can hear the pigeons cooing from the roof and gables of the British Museum. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is silent on this matter too. It is annoying that its the Bloomsbury pigeons which are making a more audible public comment on certain portable antiquity issues than the multi-million pound organization set up at public expense to deal with portable antiquity issues.

Is "coo coo" the best argument the British archaeological establishment can muster these days?

Vignette: Bloomsbury Pete (national representative of the NGO, the Avian Concern for Cultural Heritage, British Museum, Bloomsbury WC1), currently Britain's most vociferous spokesman on portable antiquity issues.

Rory Tyler: "Rewrite the Artifact Law"

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Rory Tyler, Moab radio personality and "cowboy poet" has a letter in the Salt Lake tribune (Jan 08 2011) called "Rewrite the Artifact Law" - doing his bit for US collectors' rights that the foreign-dug ancient-coin-focussed ACCG will not do. This is what he says:

[...] clearly there is no way to currently prevent looting of ancient artifacts. Where a black market exists, someone will supply its demands. [...] We need a new paradigm because the current one for protection and preservation is failing. [...] As long as the artifact black market exists, it’s going to be cops and robbers in the canyons.

First of all let us note that it is for him unquestionable that the looting odf archaeological sites in his country is taking place because people are collecting the things dug up. We note that the US coineys, wholly illogically, deny this connection strenuously. Mr Tyler however sees no need to defend this notion, and - frankly - nor do I.

In his letter, Tyler calls for a legalising of the market in dugup antiquities. Sadly he misses the main point, he has been drawn into artefact fetishisation by the collectors' propaganda. Perhaps here is a point US archaeologists and preservationists need to get over more forcibly. It is of course not "who owns artefacts" that is the problem. The law is not the "Artifact law" (sic) but the 1906 Antiquities Act (see 16 U.S.C. § 431 to § 433) and the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (Pub.L. 96-95 as amended, 93 Stat. 721, codified at 16 U.S.C. § 470aa–470mm) - designed not to channel "artefacts" into one set of hands or another but to protect the archaeological record from being dug over clandestinely for entertainment or profit in search of collectables.

Under the impression that this is about ownership of clandestinely-excavated artefacts, Tyler proposes a solution for consideration:

Today, the richest troves of Southwestern artifacts exist in collections, public and legal, and private and often illegal. Rewrite the Antiquities Act this way: Declare amnesty for possession of all existing artifacts. Record and register them and allow owners to buy, sell, trade or donate them in a regulated market. This would accomplish several things.

First, the new artifacts that would become available to collectors would overwhelm the black market, reducing or ending the incentive for looting.

Second, an artifact’s history, that information valuable to scientists, would be recovered before it’s completely lost — for example, a family story about where Uncle Earl found it.

Third, create a digital catalogue, a virtual museum of items hitherto unavailable to researchers.

This is more or less what Dave Welsh is suggesting for other types of artefacts. Maybe the ACCG should reconsider its policy of not collaborating with local collectors of locally dug artefacts so US collectors are singing from the same songsheet.

As for Mr Tyler's suggestions, the "new artefacts" would only become available for collectors to swamp the black market if the collectors owning the now-legitimised artefacts decide to sell them, why should they? The other two notions sound like what the PAS is doing in the UK with the artefacts other collectors have dug up all over the place.

What is unclear is how Mr Tyler's suggestion of legalising the market in dugup archaeological artefacts from protected sites, so it is no longer "black", will in any way effect preservation of the archaeological sites from which they are being dug. What would be to stop looters going out to dig up a whole lot more during this period of amnesty? In any case the felony is not so much the "possession of artefacts", but the unauthorised digging into protected sites. I feel that were Mr Tylor's suggestion be adopted, there would be a lot of artefacts which their owners would be claiming were found "over there by my Late Uncle Earl" - rather than admitting that it was they who were wielding the shovel.

Truth and deceit About the Antiquities Market

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In a text called 'The truth about the antiquities trade....' an antiquity dealer is - not surprisingly - quoted as saying:

"Barford[']s assertion that the trade is huge and large
numbers of antiquities are changing hands every day is wrong."

The text was written by Candice Jarman, a secretary in Bournemouth whose credentials for making such assessments about the antiquities market are stated to be that he is neither a metal detectorist or dealer but has some "friends' who are metal detectorists.

Jarman claims that the number of antiquity dealers is exaggerated in the literature about the subject. Reference is made to an earlier post of mine talking about an antiquity collecting forum's "good dealers" list by Ernie Krumbein which I suggest readers look at to examine "the workings of the antiquities trade [...] at first hand". It is of course not intended to be even a partial list of all dealers in the western world and Near East.

Then attention is turned to eBay.

Today (4 January 2011) at 21.19, there are 5,120 results for antiquities listed

A search just now shows the number of items on sale on ebay to be 20,229 results found in "antiquities" and a further 27,588 results found under Coins, ancient:

Replicas & Reproductions (701)

Byzantine (1,390)

Celtic (277)

China (4,366)

Greek (3,900)

Islamic (1,134)

Medieval (1,369)

Persian, Indian, Asian (2,296)

Roman: Imperial (8,985)

Roman: Provincial (1,563)

Roman: Republic (674)

Other (673)

Let us subtract the 701 replicas and reproductions and the books on offer. It is still a substantial number on sale on any one day. The spread of portable antiquities on sale on eBay is similar today:

The Americas (2,114)

Byzantine (466)

Celtic (313)

Egyptian (1,727)

Far Eastern (514)

Greek (1,320)

Holy Land (522)

Islamic (972)

Near Eastern (540)

Neolithic & Paleolithic (973)

Roman (5,064)

South Italian (316)

Viking (577)

Reproductions (1,452)

Price Guides & Publications (156)

Other (3,237)

There is a "slight" difference between the number of 5,120 artefacts claimed to be on ebay last night and the number (more than 40 000) that anyone can find a few hours later. Either there has been a lot of mid-week nocturnal activity by ebay dealers all over the world, or somebody is misleading their readers. I invite mine to check the links above and decide for themselves which set of numbers is the closest to reality on a given day.

The apologist for the trade goes on to suggest that the trade does not matter because "many of the items listed are n't even old, let alone ancient". Indeed, as is well-known, there is a lot of fakery, misrepresentation and scamming going on on Internet sales sites generally and many people buying simply cannot tell the difference between real and fake in antiquity buying. That does not mean however that there is NO trade in genuine looted and legitimately sold artefacts going on through these venues. What the indiscriminate trade of such items does show however are the numbers of buyers willing to obtain stuff without asking any questions about its precise origins. I was discussing the degree that fake artefacts are being represented as genuine on eBay - there was a lively discussion of this (based on statements being made by Charles Standish) well before blogger Candice Jarman came on the scene to brighten up our lives.

Let us also recall that there are other venues for the sellers of dugup antiquities, Trocadero for example and the portal run by ACCG President Bill Puetz, V-coins on which today 148 dealers in ancient artefacts ("5 more Coming Soon") are offering 108,221 Items, mostly coins and dugup artefacts with a total value of $21,929,580. This is not to mention those who contact potential clients through collectors' forums such as Tim Haines' "Yahoo AncientArtifacts" discussion list, Forum Ancient Coins or the several dedicated to putting buyers of uncleaned bulk lots of artefacts and coins in touch with those that stock them. Or there are many freestanding specialist websites and even YouTube videos selling bulk lots.

Returning to the topic of ebay, Candice Jarman also mentions what UK metal detectorists sell there and dismisses it:

most of what is listed is dross - fragments of this-and-that, corroded discs (coins?) and debris and lots of indeterminate metal crap which may or may not be old. If you took most of these to your local museum as finds, then they would probably tell you politely to go away and stop wasting their time.

Candice-not-a-metal detectorist obviously has not read what the PAS FAQ says. The PAS can confirm or deny this, but I do not think it is normal FLO policy to tell members of the public coming forward with items they have found to "go away and stop wasting our time", even politely.

Now it is true that some metal detectorists in the UK may make up a job lot of partifacts which are not archaeological (which rather depends on how you define that of course) artefacts per se. In other words they are not the sort of thing the PAS generally record on their database. Such items ARE however recorded on the UKDFDatabase in some considerable numbers. These Old-Timey pieces are saleable because collectable. Candice however is missing the point, these items are the equivalent of the duplicate coil or headphones a metal detectorist may offer for sale, they are the items they have dug or picked up in the fields which they recognise they can make a few quid on and do not need for their own collections. The best stuff they keep for themselves or take to a specialist dealer (many of whom hang around commercial artefact hunting rallies to make finders an offer). The fact that Old-Timey items are being offered for sale does not mean that archaeological finds are NOT. On this blog I have highlighted a number of egregious cases, I am sure any day's search of British sellers on eBay will reveal many more. Confirmation of this is only a few mouse-clicks away.

As far as UK metal detecting is concerned, the large numbers of PAS-recordable archaeological artefacts being taken from the soil has to be accounted for. Either they are entering metal detectorists' collections, or are being sold to other collectors, or they are being discarded. In the majority of cases this is happening without any record being kept of where the objects came from, what they were found with, and what subsequently happened to them. No amount of "it's not that bad really" special pleading can change that. It is a problem that has to be addressed.

The fact that metal-detected Old-Timey partefacts and misrepresented items and outright fakes are brazenly sold alongside unreported archaeological finds on the Internet does not make the removal from the soil and collection or sale of the latter any less of a problem. No more than the fact that many drivers who get behind the wheel of a car after drinking alcohol have accidents on the way home makes accidents caused by idiots Driving Under the influence... a less serious problem.

The reader of this blog can decide for themselves whether the antiquities market is "much smaller and much less active" than the indications suggest. Perhaps after looking for and through the evidence themselves, they might look at who is making the claims minimising the extent and damage caused by the no-questions-asked market. They can then consider what interests the latter have in presenting it in this way rather than joining calls to clean it up and make the whole process more transparent and accountable.

Again it is clear that the lead should be being taken here by the PAS, informing the public and policy makers about the issues surrounding the current form of the international trade in antiquities.

Vignette: when the PAS start talking opely and frankly about ALL the archaeological issues related to their "partnership".

TV Antiquities Roadshow: Archaeological Catastrophe

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Somehow into my hands has fallen a document which I find quite disturbing. It is undated and unsigned but seems to be a current proposal for a series of TV programmes which its author seems to think can be made with PAS participation. This ought to be discussed more widely because what is proposed seems to have very real implications for the way the public perceives British archaeology. The document confirms the worst fears of the critics of the PAS, so it would be legitimate to ask whether this is a spoof intended to mislead. I would like to be able to think so. Sadly it is accompanied by a letter addressed to PAS staff (dated 10.12.10: 12:56) which looks wholly authentic.

According to the letter there have already been two meetings with an Executive Producer of a television company (named in the email) concerned about the proposal for a programme (8 half hour episodes) to be put out on prime time television and largely focussing on the PAS. It is apparently provisionally titled however "Britain's Secret treasures" (seems to be some confusion here). The name of the female presenter of the programme is given.

The programmes will reportedly be looking at the excitement of discovery rather than archaeology and apparently the value of the objects discovered once out of the ground as saleable commodities and national treasures. The television company has apparently been granted complete access (by whom?) to the network of forty Treasure (sic) Liaison Officers and the British Museum's Finds (sic) department. Frankly if they really do have complete access, in their place, I'd be asking quite different questions of them than what the creators of this programme seem to have in mind (see post below this one).

Now I really do not think I can post here this document or the accompanying letter which commends it to the attention of PAS staff, even in the interests of transparency. Readers who want to check out that I am not making this up can try writing to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and ask politely to see it (your local FLO will have one too), it is after all a product of public money. I do think however there are questions that the public and the archaeological community which the PAS claims to represent should be asking of the organization as a whole about its participation in the programme it documents.

1) Is it true that the PAS staff are now being called "Treasure Liaison Officers"? Is this really what the TV company thinks after two high-level meetings with PAS outreach staff?

2) Is it true that the PAS are negotiating with a TV company the making of a programme conforming to the well-known format of the Antiques Roadshow type, in which the presenter will follow the Liaison Officers "as they answer calls from people who think they might have found something worth a fortune", from house visits to finds days when the "queues of hopeful prospectors curve around the block" with the magical moments of each episode leading to the question "and how much is it worth"? Is this really what the TV company think the PAS is about after thirteen years of PAS outreach to the general public and an executive's meetings with the Scheme's outreach staff?

3) Is it true that the programme will accompany "hopeful prospectors" as they learn their find is worthless [closeup of crestfallen expression, sad background music] or the cultural and monetary value to Britain and how the payment for a treasure find has "changed the lives of individuals"? Is this really what the TV company think the PAS is about after two meetings with its outreach staff?

4) Is it true that the programme will be portraying the British Museum as setting up 'Treasure rallies' (sic) across the country targeting specific areas as part of their archaeological outreach in which "hundreds of members of the public will comb a set of fields searching for Treasure and artefacts" which will be continuing the previous high success rate of the rallies they have organized so far? Is this really what the TV company think the PAS is about after its meetings with its outreach staff?

5) Is it true that part of the project would be to organize road shows which would be "advertising rallies and providing information on how to search for Treasure"? Is this really what the TV company think the PAS is about after its meetings with its outreach staff?

It strikes me that if this really is what a TV executive producer (surely an educated man) brings away from thirteen years of PAS outreach to the public and two presumably high-level meetings with its staff, there is little chance that the PAS has been getting across to the general public as a whole any sort of the message which it is charged with. What is going on?

Can anyone see any reason why this proposal was not discussed with the archaeological milieu before it being presented to PAS staff at a meeting on Friday morning apparently as a fait accompli? (The CBA, and the archaeological trust RESCUE claim no knowledge of this.) Were the TV executive appraised of the existence of bodies like CBA, RESCUE, IfA, ALGAO, Cadw and EH which should surely have been also involved in consulting this idea? What is going on?

There have been spiteful archaeological jokes about the PAS "finds days" in the past that it is organizing a portable antiquities version of the popular TV series "Antiques Roadshow", now that sick joke seems well on the way to becoming reality. With what effects for the public's perception of archaeology? The PAS is supposedly acting as British archaeology's largest public outreach and thus what it presents to the British media is directly responsible for the image the British public have of the discipline. It seems to me that public outreach on behalf of a discipline whose very existence is dependent on public expectations really needs to be conducted in a coherent and well-planed manner and not partisan actions here and there by separate organizations headed off on different directions.

The PAS is responsible for presenting a picture of artefact hunting and collecting compatible with that of archaeology and archaeological heritage management/conservation. If it is true that they are letting TV executives come away from two meetings with the impression that it is the BM which organizes commercial treasure hunting rallies and it is all about people digging up the countryside and finding as much treasure as they can from as deep as they can go and "showing them how", it seems they are not getting the message across even at that level - but surely it is exactly in their dealings with the media that this is so important. The letter to PAS staff only comments on one aspect of the contents of the accompanying prospectus, what its author coyly calls "sensitivities" around what is clearly the programme's currently intended focus on financial "valuations". I would say that is a gross understatement of what the real problems are.

This text begs the question whether the PAS has a full and multi-aspectual media pack for journalists setting out in clearly understandable detail the conservation and preservationist background to the debate on portable antiquity collecting and artefact hunting issues. I bet that even after thirteen years of "liaison" with the general public and media it has not. (I would be only too happy to be proven wrong here).

The apparently close involvement of the PAS in the creation of this programme proposal is nothing less than a scandal, whether or not the programme actually airs at all or in the currently proposed form. I sincerely hope it does not. Millions of pounds of public money have been spent on the Scheme under the aegis that it is going towards creating conditions for best practice in artefact hunting and collecting to be fostered and encouraged and conducting archaeological outreach to the general public as a whole about portable antiquity issues. Instead we see increasingly an artefact centred approach being foisted on the archaeological community and general public, damagingly debasing the public image (and perhaps even the self-image) of the discipline of archaeology to the level of a disorganized free-for-all treasure hunt. From there it is just a step to what we see here, which seems to me to be a total misrepresentation of archaeology, and certainly seems geared to encouraging treasure-hunting for commercial gain. But then, what do I know, eh?

I'll leave this with a comment from Jonathan Jones, as he put it back in October:

Buried treasure has dazzled the media. The Antiques Roadshow view of the world has prevailed. Is it any wonder we are confused about the value of old art and artefacts? [...] It is curious to see so many people pretend they are there out of pure historical curiosity, only for eyes to light up when a good price is quoted – or go dull when the fascinating find turns out not to have a huge financial value. You can almost picture Great Uncle Albert's letters from the trenches being chucked out of the car on the way home when it is discovered they are not a gold mine, just history.

Now, I really hope that I've got the wrong end of the stick here, that the document which I received was an end of year prank by the PAS office-boy. I am sure the PAS will be happy to explain to the British public and British archaeological community, just what that letter really represents in terms of its overall strategy for outreach to the British public to encourage awareness of portable antiquity issues in their full richness and "best practice" in artefact hunting and collecting.

I would love to be a fly on the wall at the meeting on Friday, will any of the PAS staff stand up and say: "no, this is not at all a good idea"? Or do they all to a man and woman think this is a really super chance to get on the telly?

Vignette: Dumbing down public information on archaeology on TV.