UK Archaeology Group Staff Member Under Investigation for Fraud

Fraud has been alleged in the UK in a "community archaeology" project, the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP). Its "former treasurer was charged with fraud and false accounting by Norfolk Police, amid suggestions in the media that over £100k may have gone missing from the project over a number of years". This group has been working with metal detectorists between 1998 and 2018. This comes after a recent case when the treasurer of another UK archaeology group was charged with a similar offence in May 2019 (" Detectorist Reportedly Defrauds Archaeological Organization of £11k"and the scandal involving the group "Detecting for Veterans" in 2021. How many more are we not hearing about? And whatever has happened to amateur archaeology in Britain these days that from being an honest and gentile pastime, it has become associated with such criminal activity ?

An Ancient Land.

US "Historian making videos on ancient civilizations":

Luke Caverns @lukecaverns · Jul 15
Good to be back in an ancient land. The Zapotec world is incredible.

"an ancient land" - as if there was nothing in his  native Texas before the white landgrab. In his local museum, are the Native American cultures housed in the Natural History museum alongside the butterflies and stuffed birds like one I saw in Florida? To me, that's a telling attitude.

Istanbul Church Reopens as Mosque With Medieval Mosaics and Frescoes Intact

After a four-year wait, the Chora Church has reopened as the Kariye Mosque with its treasured works of Christian art open to public view (Jennifer Hattam Istanbul Church Reopens as Mosque With Medieval Mosaics and Frescoes Intact Hyperallergic 14.07.2024)

When the 11th-century Chora Church was ordered to be reconverted into a mosque in 2020, many feared for the fate of its richly decorated interior, which features some of the world’s finest Late Byzantine-era mosaics and frescoes. After a tense four-year wait while the building was closed for restoration, it reopened on May 6 as the Kariye Mosque with its treasured works of Christian art [ ] again open to public view.

Except for a handful of pieces in the small central nave that has been set aside for the men’s prayer hall, off-limits to non-Muslims and women.

From "Encyclopedic" Trophy Museum to Trophy "Encyclopedic Museum"

Reportedly, Hartwig Fischer, former British Museum director, after resigning amid a theft scandal, has been appointed as the founding director of a new museum of world cultures in Riyadh, set to open in 2026.

Metal detectorist to sell ‘Nobby’ the fertility figure he found in a field

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My Mum told me about this one, she thinks I should be nicer to metal detectorists (Sam Russel 'Metal detectorist to sell ‘Nobby’ the fertility figure
he found in a field" Standard `13 Jun 2024):

Retired lorry driver Bob Jemmett found the bronze figure, which measures 37mm by 10mm, in a ploughed field in Little Chishill, Cambridgeshire. The 75-year-old, of Manningtree, Essex, was at an organised rally when he made the discovery in September 2018. [...] Mr Jemmett said: “The weather was appalling with the rain lashing down, but I persevered and received a lovely signal from my Minelab 3030 detector. “Digging down four inches, I uncovered a small, bronze, nude, male figure, which featured a prominent erection similar to the Cerne   Abbas Giant, that is carved into a hill in Dorset. “The figure was identified as a Celtic fertility figure and published on the Portable Antiquities website and subsequently used as a logo by the rally organisers in their promotions. “As a result, detectorists from all over Europe at rallies would ask me if they could see Nobby who I always keep in my pocket as a constant companion”.

Sold at Noonans for £3,000. So the landowner will be getting half then? Of course "not in it for the money, eh".

The State of Britain

 

As Britain heads for a general election, the UK's top business newspaper comes out for Labour because... "Brexit, the defining project of this Tory era, has proven an act of grave economic self-harm". As was clear from their forums, the islands' metal detectorists were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving Europe, and they rejected what they labelled "project fear" (warnings of the consequences from specialists) with an " 'oo needs experts, eh? Wot d'they know?". In the same way as the fate of the country was determined by self-centred opiniated fluff-brains like that, the same country assigns looking after part of the archaeological heritage to the same crowd. Baz Thugwit can hardly string three sentences together coherently, let alone do any kind of documentation of the context from which he blindly hoiked and pocketed this or that 'partifact'. So much for public engagement.

Some Opinions on Hancock's Writings and Their Relationship to Various Shades of Supremacism

There is a battle going on on social media, Graham Hancock, author of texts such as The Sign and the Seal, the Search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant 'The Mars Mystery: The Secret Connection Between Earth and the Red Planet', 'Fingerprints of the Gods', 'Magicians of the Gods' and 'America Before', etc. objects to people saying that his theories on a lost Predecessor Civilisation that influenced all the known ancient civilisations have links to the arguments of white supremacists. In particular he has focussed a really nasty hate-campaign on archaeologist Dr Flint Dibble who allegedly referred to this issue. I was interested to see whether it was a point made by "just" one archaeologist, or whether Hancock is shutting his eyes to the fact that this view is quite widespread. Check these out for yourselves (there may be more). Have a read of what other people wrote and the reasons they give, and decide for yourselves:

List of Works

[Book Review]: David V. Barrett, 'Psst... wanna buy a secondhand conspiracy? Talisman: sacred cities, secret faith, by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval' Independent Thursday 19 August 2004 ["It's a mish-mash of badly-connected, half-argued theories. Only in the last chapter, and the misleadingly-titled Appendix, does the authors' purpose become clear. They suddenly start promulgating a version of the old Jewish-Masonic plot so beloved by ultra-right-wing conspiracy theorists. This is a deeply troubling end to a mess of a book. With luck, most readers won't get that far".]

Alexander Zaitchik, 'Close encounters of the Racist Kind' SPLCwatch January 02, 2018

Rick Hellman, 'Professor can comment on Netflix's ‘Ancient Apocalypse,’ pseudo-archaeology', University of Kansas News 25 Oct 2022

Jennifer SANDLIN, 'Archaeologists reveal the white supremacist nonsense behind Netflix's "Ancient Apocalypse" Boing Boing, Sun Nov 27, 2022. 

Robin McKie Science Editor, 'Lost city of Atlantis rises again to fuel a dangerous myth' Guardian Sun 27 Nov 2022.

Hugo Hodge, ' Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse series uses 'racist ideologies' to rewrite Indo-Pacific history, experts say' Australian Broadcastig Company, Pacific Beat, Posted Tue 6 Dec 2022.

Flint Dibble, 'The Dangers of Ancient Apocalypse’s Pseudoscience' Sapiens 6 Dec 2022

J R Leach, ' Ancient Apocalypse and Graham Hancock's 'Dangerous Ideas' Why has the popular Netflix documentary ignited the ire of the media?', Greenjack's Journal Dec. 11, 2022.

Eshaan Sarup, 'Bad science: Local experts call ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ one big lie', C-VILLE Weekly (Charlottesville), Dec. 21, 2022.

Sarah E. Bond, 'Why Archaeologists Are Fuming Over Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse Series', Hyperallergic January 4, 2023.

Ruth Steinhardt, ' The Real Ancient Apocalypse', GW-Today January 23, 2023

Aaron Rabinowitz, 'Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock: from alien conspiracies to antisemitism' The Sceptic, 15th February 2023

Catherine Upex, ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ Angers Archaeologists, Fueling an Alarming Mistrust of Academia', Nowadays (Edinburgh) 28 February 2023

Erin Blakemore, ' Why the myth of Atlantis just won’t die [The lack of evidence for its existence hasn’t stopped people from hunting for it—or insisting that archaeologists are involved in a cover-up]' National Geographic, April 19, 2023 [Dibble]. Carl Feagans, 'Archaeologist Helps Pseudoarchaeologist find His Lane' Archaeology Review April 30, 2024.

Chris Lazzarino ‘Ancient Apocalypse’ and the consequence of conspiracy', Kansas Alumni magazine Issue 2, 2023.

Summed-up on Quora:
William Hartwell (Writer, Science Fiction and Fantasy) 1y

He’s not hated - he’s laughed at. The man is a farce. His claims are sheer fantasy, his “research” indulges in confirmation bias supporting preconceived conclusions by ignoring context, cherry picking or misinterpreting evidence, and withholding critical countervailing data. Not a single one of his claims has undergone peer review, and he has never published a single paper in a peer reviewed journal.
In other words, the man is NOT a scientist. He has admitted that his writing was inspired by his drug use.
On top of everything else, his writings are full of antisemitic conspiracy theories and white supremacist “white savior” stories.

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It really looks like his focus on this issue is a deflection tactic - attempting to draw attention away from other issues with his "theories".

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