Mirror Pieces Hoiked, "Went back for a 3 foot signel"

Treasure Hunting magazine Facebook page.

By the time this appeared, all the original Twitter and Facebook posts by the finder and other MD groups had for some reason been deleted. That raises some concerns.

What does it mean "once everything has been sorted and settled"? Eh? This "Dean will be sharing his account of what it is like to unearth something so wonderful as this with readers of Treasure Hunting magazine" is probably not going to be featuring him wetting himself with anxiety about the responsibility of documenting the context... And seriously, what tosh it is to describe allowing himself to be interviewed for a lowbrow hobby magazine as an example of the "classic kind and considerate sharing action on behalf of a finder". Caring and considerate (not to mention responsible) would be leaving the thing to be properly documented, expertly recovered and then conserved by archaeologists, rather than blindly hoiking out what the finder (by his own account) did not really understand what he was handling - thus rendering making proper observations and records of the context impossible. And yes, that is typical of this destructive hobby.

So we see all the bits laid out on a fluffy bathroom towel presumably after cleaning (please, not in the bath) and can see what a parlous state the metal is in. Where are these objects now, during the New Year break? Julian Evans Hart on the Metal Detectives Group Facebook page  says:-

The excavation (sic) wasnt done under perfect conditions [...] basically the items were recovered on the site of a farm dump where there are several deeply buried bits of agricultural machinery and cans etc - initially this was expected to be the case and initially the find was not identified for what it was - but soon was identified via a Facebook posting - the finder then immediately backfilled the hole (there are more artefacts there) He then immediately notified his local museum and the FLO via email - and is awaiting a reply (perhaps what is needed to be considered here is some adequate form of immediate response cover for important finds in holiday periods) as detectorists seem to never holiday LOL

Perhaps responsible artefact hunting is desisting from doing it at all when there is no chance that if outside help is needed, it can only be obtained with somebody else putting themselves to great inconvenience and expense to deal with an avoidable problem. Responsible detecting is not undertaking anything for which the searcher has no resources including financial) to deal with the consequences incumbent on a responsible searcher.

This is what is published on facebook about this find (Services Archaeology and Heritage Association, posted on 31 Dec 2019 o 11:41) ·

We were sent these photos which were posted on FB by a Metal Detectorist yesterday. The details behind them left us shocked to the core and very concerned. The individual who posted these pictures boasted about digging down 3 foot, well below the plough soil and ripped our what appears to be a Bronze Mirror typically dated to the Iron Age along with other artfacts and pieces of Iron Age pottery. The finds strongly suggest a grave which was the view of the finder himself. Instead of calling in experts it appears he went back more than once and removed more items from his 3 foot hole! From further postings he is planning to return and see what else he can find!! To compound matters futher, he then "cleaned" the items himself, losing valuable Archaeological information. When told this was the incorrect thing to do he was unrepentant and it was suggest the Metal Deteorists know more than Archeologist on how to deal with finds. It was pointed out to him that his actions from start to finish did not meet the code of best prastice as agreed by the PAS, the BM and the NCMD it was treated as a bit of a joke. When he was asked had the FLO been consulted he suggest that he and FLO would have quote, "a Coffee and a Giggle" over it!! We as a group work closely with responsible Metal Detectorist but there seems to be a growing number of new individuals who are driven by the goal of finding "things" rather than a love for our shared history and heritage. Is it now time to revisit the guidelines laid down by the PAS, bring in a licence and consider compulsory training for people who wish to Metal Detect[?].

Here's how these items look after 'cleaning' using whatever means he had to hand at home...  That white bloom on the mirror is quite worrying. There are also fragments of at least one metal vessel here and other objects from the bottom or sides of that three-feet (c.1 meter) hole, I doubt we'll ever know the details. Why are these objects so fragmented? Were they damaged before they were deposited in the ground (in a grave?)? Were they damaged when the burial context was disturbed in antiquity, for example by a modern land drain going through it, and perhaps mixing material from two separate deposits in the feature's fill at the point where a detectorist's keyhole digging finds the loose objects? Or were they broken at the moment the artefact hunter pulled them out blindly in a narrow 3-foot deep detecting hole? Where is the documentation, when even all the social media posts have been deleted?

Why were they deleted? Does "once everything has been sorted and settled" in fact mean making the landowner aware of what happened? Is that why the posts were deleted, because who else would the finder not want knowing what they said about the circumstances of the find - which should be a matter of public record, as the information trashed (or not) by this artefact hunter are part of the common archaeological heritage, it does not belong just to dig-it-up "Dean".