Bonkers PAS in Bonkers Britain

I think working in the Portable Antiquities Scheme is getting to some of the staff. The BBC reports that an eight-year old Swedish girl found a Viking sword in the lake near her holiday home in Jonkoping county and reported it to the local museum that then as a result carried out an investigation:

Durham FLO Ben Westwood‏ @FLODurhamFLO 4 godz.4 godziny temu 'hoiking' a sword from its lake context? Some might term that 'cultural damage' [emoticon]

I assume that he is by that comment having a go at Sam Hardy and following the line of that scandalous dismissive article by the Ixelles Six (one of the co-authors being the head of the PAS Mike Lewis). If an adult had been deliberately targeting a site known to produce ancient items thrown into the water at a particular spot and was using a metal detector to do that, yes, I think we might well say that she is doing irreperable cultural/archaeological damage by blindly and deliberately removing material from a known site without an adequate recording protocol. Though I do not know what a FLO would say. Probably 'you done well, bring us some more'. And that is what is wrong with the Portable Antiquities Scheme model of heritage management.

Vignette: FLO bizarreness and the Swedish girl