local tv: metal detectorists vs archaeologists lock

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nigelswift N
nigelswift May 31, 2007 06:42:03
Replying to Paul Barford

Littlestone, if you listen to Paul you may not get the full impact of just how severe is the loss....

He says that Joe Boggins
"has in his back bedroom a collection of (among other things) dozens, nay hundreds of brooches taken from a variety of Roman and Anglo Saxon sites within driving distance of his home, and also those he found on rallies in Yorkshires and Suffolk?"

Just yesterday, a detectorist wrote
"I have got 120 Roman brooches FROM JUST ONE FIELD"!
It is statistically likely that PAS haven't breen informed and it is practically certain that he will continue to harvest it until it yields no more. I wonder what that field was? Most probably, no-one will now ever know.

Of course (and assuming this IS one of the majority of cases that PAS weren't informed about) there is SOME good coming out of the situation. Either there will be a payback in terms of pride for the detectorist when he opens his Roman brooches draw, OR there will be a sense of pride on the part of 120 Connecticut hillbillies when they open THEIR drawers. I'd hazard a guess that as a conservator you have a tinge of annoyance about such a scenario and the fact that those are the only benefits that can be seen from such a wretched little process. And I think you'll be hard pushed to propose a "middle way" solution....
- a significant British Roman site gone without hope of future discovery and its only memorial a shadow of an outline in some acquisituive b***'s secret box of curios....
And there are a minimum of TEN THOUSAND detectorists in Britain, all of whom are dedicated to researching where they can find the "most productive" sites.

L Littlestone
Littlestone May 31, 2007 09:00:39
Replying to nigelswift

I think you know me well enough by now Nigel to know that I would never condone the rape of our heritage in any way shape or form, and I completely agree with you and Paul in what you say :-) You are also right to point out that as a conservator I have (far more than) a tinge of annoyance about our history being ripped from our fields and sold for gain and that I'd also be hard pushed to propose a middle way.

If I may be allowed to present a slightly different facet to this discussion however: my first conservation studio at the British Museum was in Budge's Room (Sir Wallace Budge of Egyptology fame). The room lay at the end of the Upper Egyptian Gallery and to get there required walking through the Roman, Greek and Anglo-Saxon galleries (the latter at that time contained the Sutton Hoo treasures). At eight o'clock in the morning I had the galleries to myself and would stop off and gaze in wonder at the things on display. Many of those things were there, of course, because they'd been pilfered in one way or the other; but there they were and one could not but stand in awe before them. At the end of the day I would walk back through the same galleries, by which time they were teeming with people from all over the world and of all ages; people inspired by what they saw and some no doubt with their futures now directed towards gaining a better understanding of human history. Putting aside the arguments raging on this thread, it is after all, such objects that bring people to our museums and do engender greater understanding of human endevour and achievement.

I am indeed hard pushed to find a middle way but a middle way has to be found. I'll leave it to those more qualified than myself to find it but, in my humble opinion, it does seem to be, as you suggest here at http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/forum/?thread=40918&message=513022 that licensing as in Northern Ireland might be that way.