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local tv: metal detectorists vs archaeologists
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Paul Barford
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Re: Afore ye go....
Jun 04, 2007, 07:08
nigelswift wrote:
the Rally at Thornborough
I think we are falling into the trap set by those who would have us call artefact hunting and collecting by the more anorakish term "metal detecting".

Artefact collectors will take any attractive 'portable antiquity' they gan get their hands on, no matter what its made of. Flint scatters exposed on downland, moors and breckland are collected away - perhaps members of this Forum know of examples from their field visits. Not all British antiquities on eBay (still less those looted from sites in other countries) are of metal.

One of the highlights of the Thornborough Henges rally was a greenstone axe picked up by a metal detectorist hunting for collectables within a few hundred metres from the northern henge (exact findspot was I think never established). This was imediately trumpeted loudly as a success for "conservation and recording" by the PAS and archaeologists whose presence there lent this disgraceful event an aura of 'respectability'. "Another find rescued from ploughing" we were told - despite the object itself bearing no traces of plough damage whatsoever. The jubilation of the pro-collecting lobby turned to dismay when a sharp-eyed conservationist from HA located the object on sale on eBay days after the rally. It turned out it had been sold by its ("only interested in the past") finder to a dealer who had set up at the rally to buy and sell finds. The face of artefact collecting was saved by a mysterious anonymous purchaser (from Australia it was said) who purchased the axe direct from the dealer before the auction was scheduled to finish and presented it to the Yorkshire Museum. The FLO responsible for this rally has since left the job.

"Metal detecting" is a misnomer born of and conducive to woolly thinking. Let us all call a spade a spade and admit that we are talking about artefact hunting and collecting - after all, if these artefact hunters want us to think that there is nothing harmful in what they do, why are they so ashamed of admitting that this is indeed what they all do?
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