In parts of the US 90% of Native American archaeological sites have been vandalised. The Government is trying to stop it. In parts of Britain more than 90% of archaeological sites have been metal detected. The government isn’t trying to stop it. You might think they and British archaeologists don’t care, but they do. It’s just that having bottled out of legislating and set up a voluntary system that has largely failed there’s not a lot of appetite for acknowledging the reality.
But silence shouldn’t be taken as acquiescence. Most archaeologists do want the activity legally regulated. That bold assertion is easily proved: see how little response this prompts: if you’re a British archaeologist reading this (and we know there are several thousand of them who follow us on Twitter) and you DON’T think metal detecting needs legislative control just say so now in our Comments section.
On the other hand, over the past few years the mood music has definitely been changing. Dare we hope that 2015 will be the year when a lot of archaeologists come clean and openly declare that the Emperor has no clothes and that the activity needs to be legally regulated? Professor Dennis Harding of Edinburgh University is already on the side of archaeology not expediency. Of the road built at the Hill of Tara he said (in stark contrast to the soothing words currently offered by some archaeologists at Stonehenge): it is “an act of cultural vandalism as flagrant as ripping a knife through a Rembrandt painting”. Of metal detecting he says (in stark contrast to the vacuous, saccharine chattering of our culture ministers):
“when government ministers, knowing no better, commend metal detecting as legitimate archaeology and are allowed to do so virtually unchallenged by the very scholars who should be upholding the highest and most rigorous academic research standards, et tu Brute seems to be the only appropriate comment”.
Will 2015 reveal lots of archaeologists and academics willing to echo his words? Or will it take another five or ten years?
.
__________________________________________
More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
__________________________________________
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
28/12/2014 at 17:10
p.abbott3@ntlworld.com
Oxford Mail »
News »
Your Area »
Oxford
Local Businesses
Dating
Buy & Sell
Book an ad
OXFORD
Man admits stealing vases from dig
share on Facebook
share
on Twitter
share
on Google+
email
(4) comments
print
First published Saturday 1 June 2013 in Oxford
A MAN from Oxfordshire has admitted stealing three medieval vases from an archaeological dig five years ago.
James Vessey, 35, worked for the Museum of London Archaeology when he stole the three Bellarmine vessels, which date from around 1650.
The archaeological service was carrying out an excavation in Bath during the redevelopment of the city’s SouthGate shopping centre.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary police officers Peter Hunt and Gemma Kirby found one of the vases for sale on auction website eBay.
Working with the archaeological service, they tracked down the suspect to his home address, a narrowboat moored at Enslow Mill Wharf near Woodstock.
Vessey admitted the charge of theft by employee at Bath Magistrates’ Court on May 22.
He was given a four-month suspended prison sentence, 270 hours of unpaid community work and told to compensate a man who bought one of the vases on eBay.
Police discovered the eBay auction – which was won with a bid of £190.60 – on July 29 last year.
Two of the vases have been returned to the museum – the third will follow shortly – and all will eventually be returned to Roman Baths museum in Bath.
RELATED LINKS
More Oxford stories
28/12/2014 at 20:25
Paul Barford
Mr Vessey has several things in common with a number of metal detectorists one could name from the news in the same period in connection with sentencing for artefact theft, except in one thing. Mr Vessey was turned in by a fellow archaeologist who spotted the pots he was selling and informed the police. None of the metal detectorists sentenced since 2008 (when he stole these pots) was turned in by a “responsible metal detectorist”. That, and the fact that this single case turns up with monotonous regularity posted by metal detectorists in comments on blogs, tells you something.