Lenborough: a lesson unlearned.

Following the Lenborough Hoard debacle (the latest of dozens of hoards dug up too fast with detectorists claiming they couldn’t be guarded overnight) you’d think PAS would ensure it never happened again. But no, they ensured it would! At the BM event An Introduction to PAS and Treasure they were asked for a definitive answer about digging a hoard “on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon when you can’t get hold of the FLO.” It was the perfect moment to finally say: always guard it, never dig it but instead they said that due to PAS’s financial constraints it’s up to the individual finder on how best to secure the find spot.

That sounds to the thinking public a bit like “guard it till the archaeologists can come” but it can also be used by those who are so inclined to announce “darkness was coming so digging it out was the best way to secure it“. For the benefit of all future such barefaced liars here’s one of dozens of ways that people who are going to be holding their hands out for a Treasure reward could guard Britain’s property ……

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“there was no way we could guard that hoard overnight”… Oh really? Well here’s one. There are dozens more.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting

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