PROTECTION versus EXPLOITATION British Archaeology's "Big Dilemma"

The laws of finding – and keeping – treasure in Britain (msn.com)

"Although academics might harbour "resentments and jealousies" about the successes of amateurs, any ill-feeling is "tempered" by the fact that nearly all of their finds would never show up in an archaeological excavation. "Most of these finds are made on cultivated land," said Lewis. "If metal detectorists didn't find them, they'd just be lost to plowing."

Hmm. Resentments and Jealousies? I really think British archaeology is utterly failing to get the message across. We do nature conservationm not out of jealousy and resentment for the proud owner of bunches and bunches of wild flower ripped out of the woodled snd soon to wilt stuck in vases. Or jealousy that Fred Scruggins has a bigger collection of blown Osprey eggs than any academic might have. Where did MSN get that idea from, and jwhy are conservationists not putting them straight about that? Where do people like this get such ideas about conservation from?

So is the idea of conserving ospreys to get all the eggs we can find in museum cases? Butterfly conservation Professor Lewis, to get them all in nice neat rows pinned to a label in the British Museum Natural History? To get all the statues of teh remote easater Island, where hardly anyone sees them and install as many as we can on the stairwell in the BRitish Museum? Rip all the sculptures off the temples of SE Asis so they can "be preserved" in private collections and museums - after all Professor Lewis, if left in the jungle and caves, "nearly all of them would never show up in an archaeological excavation. If artefact hunters don't find them, saw them off, they'd just be lost to the jungled". yes, Professor Lewis? That's ghow we preserve the legacy of the past in your eyes? I do not see it that way. Besides teh artefact a that are found in ploughed fields but BELOW plough level, we yes, we do not see them there, but that is what iun archaeological parlance is called "undisturbed archaeological record" (I'd refer the learned academic to the Valletta Convention). Then again, a lot of metal detecting is done on grassland, so not ploughed felds, some is done in forests, some in open water. I do not think this Lewisian Argumentation applieds to it all, nor does it make sense as archaeological resource PROTECTION. What it is he is advocating there is some crude form (because tekkies dig blind and tend to keep no real records)of Archaeological Resource EXPLOITATION. Which to choose? What a dilemma for British archsaeologists. Think of themselves, or think of future generations' usage of what tehey leave behind?





he . Then again, a lot of metal detecting is done on grassland, so not ploughed felds, some is done in forests, some in open water. I do not think this Lewisian Argumentation applieds to it all, nor does it make sense as archaeological resource proection. What it is he is advocating there is(some crude form 9because tekkiees dig blind and tend to keep no real records) Archaeological Resource

Estonia returns almost three hundred Ukrainian artifacts

 

British Archaeology Fail: APPAG Cuddly Pink Unicorn Inquiry on Archaeology and Artefact-Hunting

APPAG Inquiry on Archaeology and Metal-detecting

Relations between archaeologists and the metal-detecting community have improved significantly over the last 25, especially with the establishment of the Portable Antiquities Scheme – a project to record archaeological finds made by the public in England and Wales – and reform of the Treasure Act 1996, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Most archaeologists now recognise the value of detector finds for advancing knowledge, and recognise the contribution made by responsible metal-detecting for understanding Britain’s past. The UK has led the way in this regard, becoming a model for public finds recording schemes elsewhere in Europe. However, there is a recognition that more could be done to bring these communities closer together in the public interest, especially with more people than ever taking up hobby metal-detecting. As such, the aim of this inquiry is to see what can be done to support responsible metal-detecting in England (specifically) and promote the benefits of archaeologists and metal-detectorists working more closely together. We therefore welcome written submissions from anyone with responses to any or all the questions in the call for evidence by the deadline of 30 April 2024:

1). What are the main factors contributing to better relations between archaeologists (whether academic, commercial, community, museum-based, organisational etc) and metal-detectors users (both independent and within detecting organisations), and how could these be advanced further?

2). What is the role of hobby metal-detecting (as a research tool) in the context of advancing our understanding of the archaeology and history of Britain, and how does that link with professional and non-professional archaeology? How should access to metal-detected finds (especially those in private collections) be facilitated, for both the wider public and academic study?

3). What is the relationship between metal-detecting and other forms of community archaeology, and how could closer cooperation be encouraged?

4). How do we better promote responsible metal-detecting, and what are the roles of archaeological bodies, landowners, detecting organisations and those that organise events for detectorists, such as those organising detecting holidays and rallies?

5). How could archaeologists better facilitate the use of metal-detectorists (and the wider public) in archaeological projects, and what are the barriers to that? Might it be possible to develop and promote methodologies for systematic metal-detecting surveys?

6). How do archaeologists, metal-detectorists and others work together to better acknowledge best practice? What is the role of museums (for example) and other publicly funded bodies in highlighting the positive contribution of metal-detecting?

7). How have museums benefitted from detector finds, and how could mechanisms be improved to enable museums to acquire more public finds?

8). What should happen to archaeological finds found through metal-detecting not acquired by museums? How can metal-detectorists be encouraged and supported to document their collections and plan for when they can no longer look after them?

Total submissions should be no longer than 500 words and sent by email to APPAG@archaeologyuk.org.

Following the submission of written evidence, the committee will select representative parties to give oral evidence at the Houses of Parliament.

The committee will decide whether to accept a submission and whether to publish it – all written evidence will be considered by the committee (whether published or not). Once a submission is published it cannot be changed. Consider carefully how much personal information you share.

All pink unicorn stuff. Five hundred words is the length of their notice, so a rather dumbdown "inquiry". And all of the questions are loaded, the typical jobsworthy and conciliatory-defeatist claptrap that is all British archaeology can offer. Searching for the word "context", "methodoilogy" or "documentation", "ethics" or anything much else than mealy-mouthed fluff, then you'll see where this is going. Needless to say I did not bother. I wonder what the response was. | 

For the record: 

1). THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE is that there is no "better relations between artefact hunters/collectors" and archaeologists/ heritage professionals generally and it is head-in-sand bollocks to say there are. Look on the metal detecting forums and social media. Just look. 

2). WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE (and if you can't be bothered yourself, there are also several recent papers by me "Alter Vikings", Medieval, Judaica - one on Bronze Age possibly coming up soon) hobby artefact hunting and collecting do not actually "advance our understanding of the archaeology". If you look objectively and as archaeology, the questions it asks and answers are simplistic and mostly based on Kossinnist dots on maps. Context is ignored,. That is NOT archaeology but antiquarianism. 

How it "links with professional archaeology" is that archaeologists get a supply of loose artefacts to write context-frei articles about without getting up off their butts. 

Metal detecting (artefact hunting and collecting) is NOT Archaeology any more than collecting costume Barbie dolls is ethnology.

3). Since artefact hunting, ripping loose archaeological finds from a more complex context, treating the latter as a quarry for collectables is NOT archaeology, it can't have any relationship with "other" archaeologies.  Loaded question - APPAG should define what archaeology is - just "digging up old things"? 

4). From the point of view of actively managing the erosion of the archaeological record by the various agences that are reducing it, it seems to me that the term "responsble artefact hunting and collecting" is an oxymoron, or at least has yet to be properly defined in Britain. The superficial and antedilluvian Code of Best Practice...,) hardly does that as it fails to cover issues such as targeting known sites, information collection strategies, and the dissemination of the record (finds) when a personal collection is dismantled.

- "detecting organisations and those that organise events for detectorists, such as those organising detecting holidays and rallies" [as the PAS already say; see also Heritage Action in 2017]  are NOT treating the archaeological record responsibly, they are using it up just to make some money for themselves. APPAG should define "responsible" first.  

5). Not only is it "possible to develop methodologies for systematic metal-detecting surveys" people are doing them (Rendlesham in GB, Grunwald here in Poland, work in Denmark). What are you "inquiring" about? Whether hobbyists can or will do them on their own initiative? Just read the forums and don't ask stupid questions. 

6). Is "highlighting the positive contribution of metal-detecting" what the emphasis should be on? what about highlighting for the better informnation of the wider public the damage done when it is done "wrong"? (again, what actually - from a resource conservation point of view - is that non-damaging "right" anyway? I do not see one, not in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine or the UK).

7). What pressures are put on museums by not curbing the way the archaeological record is being hoovered up and dumped in their glass cases without much site context?  When we have the National Museum of Wales deemed superfluous and closing - are these pressures that museums can cope with in this period of Britain's cultural decline? WOULD the National Museum of Wales be "saved' if some metal detectorist walked in with even the biggest ever Roman denarii hoard found in a Welsh field, twice as big as any ever known from the British Isles? Of course not, the problem lies elsewhere. 

8). "What should happen to archaeological finds found through metal-detecting not acquired by museums?" Should have thought about that before potentially 12.27mln of them have already been dug up and dispersed. I'd be interested in collecting here the references to all those conference papers delivered on this subject in Britain since 1996. 

 

Yet Another Rusty Helmet Just Surfaces on the Antiquities Market

               Facebook, what's that               
 in the background?

Over on Facebook Antique arms and armours of Europe Group ( 39K+ followers)

Michael Pernik Sstpnodoer27f
I offer here a original viking age iron helmet (Kreuzbandhelm) 700-900 AD in good condition without restauration price VB

He wants 3700 Euro for it but the only collection history he offers is that it came from a "German Auction house" and then shows an invoice from Stauffer Auktionen, Munsingen, German [with his address on it] dated to 5th April 2020 for a "bandhelm 10 Jahrhundert" (which differs from the description he's offering it with).

The auction house is an odd one to have bought something like this and entrust its authentication, its current sale is a lot of bric-a-brac.   

It's not getting a very good reception on the FB page. It simply does not look right. Then somebody discovered I'd written about one like this that appeared in the hands of a longhaired tattooed pawnshop proprietor on a dumbass US TV show with a guest appearance from a US antiquities dealer: Dealer Dodge and the Curious Case of the Anglo-Saxon helmets (I)

On the Facebook page, they seem to think the one I wrote about is the one now being sold by Mr Pernik. In fact it is not, the Pawnstars one has flatter bands, flatter rivets, did not have the hole in the crown just upposite a broken area of the browband that the Stauffer one does. 

In fact, there is a medieval helmet shape to which these ones are closer, the cervelliere helm, 12th to 13th centuries (tthough sometimes worn later). Some of these have a lack of visible means of attachment to a liner or fastenings (were they glued to a padded cap that did?)

So it means that Mr Pernik has had two of these in his hands in recent years, and he is trying valiantly to sell this one online instead of going to a proper auctioneer. Where are all of these helmets with very similar construction and odd features coming from?

Unesco verifies damage to 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza

Unesco verifies damage to 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza

In addition to the enormous human cost of the Israel-Gaza war, cultural heritage has been heavily impacted by the conflict. At least 43 cultural heritage sites in Gaza have been damaged since the war began on 7 October 2023, Unesco has verified. Although on-the-ground assessments are currently impossible, the UN agency is conducting preliminary damage assessments for cultural properties through remote monitoring based on satellite imagery and analysis. As of 8 April 2024, Unesco has verified damage to 43 sites – 10 religious sites, 24 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, two depositories of movable cultural property, three monuments, one museum and three archaeological sites. This is almost double the number of damaged sites listed by the agency in January 2024, which stood at 22. Unesco has called for the protection of cultural sites and for all involved parties to strictly adhere to international law.

As if what Netanyahu's Israel was doing in the Gaza enclave was in any way in accord with "international law".

Another Getty Trophy Piece Goes Back to Turkey. Museum-Speak Translation

“In light of new information recently provided

by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit

of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal 

excavation of this bronze head, we agreed that the object

needed to be returned to Türkiye”

museum director Timothy Potts.

.

A disembodied life-sized bronze head of a young mandating back to 100 BCE–100 CE currently among the rophy pieces in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has been removed from view and will soon be repatriated to Turkey (Adam Schrader, 'The Getty Museum Returns an Ancient Bronze Head to Turkey' Artnet.news April 24, 2024 - see also NYT). "The museum said it had received new information from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating it had been illegally excavated". Translated, that means that when the bought it, and all the time they've had it on display, the Museum had zero documentation verifying that it had been legally excavated.

The head had been in the antiquities collection at the Getty Villa Museum since it was acquired in 1971. But the museum said it had received new information from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York indicating it had been illegally excavated. The California museum did not reveal what new information had come to light about the excavation, and officials in New York did not yet respond to a request for information. [...] said in a statement. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the details of its investigation.

It is likely that this bronze head is another of those items excavated clandestinely in the late 1960s at Bubon, in the Burdur province of southwestern Turkey and smuggled out onto the international antiquities market.

There are many resources for reading about the looting on Bubon, including this feature on Smart History worth revisiting: 'Looting, collecting, and exhibiting: the Bubon bronzes (video) by  Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe and Dr. Steven Zucker Aug 29, 2017.

"Additional resources:

Dr. Elizabeth Marlow, “Marlowe on the Real Issue with the Glyptotek Head” from the Illicit Cultural Property Blog.

Dr. Elizabeth Marlowe, “When Will Museums Tell the Whole Truth About Their Antiquities?,” Hyperallergic, September 14, 2022

Bubon on Chasing Aphrodite

Bubon on Looting Matters"

The Getty bronze head (acc. no. 71.AA.458 ) had been bought in 1971 for $90,000 from Nicolas Koutoulakis, an antiquities trafficker based in Parishead

Ram Raid at Antiquities Auction House

Hansons’ saleroom in Derbyshire has been the victim of a ram-raid break-in, the auction house in Heage Lane, Etwall suffered a burglary during the early hours of April 18.( Laura Chesters, 'Jewellery taken during ram raid at Hansons auction house', Antiques Trade Gazette, 22 Apr 2024). Hansons has previously been involved in a number of controversial sales of portable antiquities straight from the ground for huge profits.

Criminals used a vehicle to reverse into the building six times, breaking through its roller shutter, a window and parts of the brick structure. They took jewellery that was destined for auction that day.[...] alarms were linked to the police and officers and people from the security firm were on the scene “promptly”.[...] The first day of a planned four-day sale - a silver, watches and jewellery auction - was postponed.

Shame, eh?