A beautiful Tweet from Ireland: “Just out of frame: the sun beaten youthful wrists that once went through them; followed perhaps by the final hands that deposited them into wetlands under a cold, cloudy, deterirating winter sky”. (@VoxHib)

And a response: “Y’see, despite fierce intellect, Voxy gets the heart of this gig. It makes him a fine archaeo. It’s the story, and memories woven into these things. They’re not made by bloody elves, they’re made by people, and sometimes, we catch glimpses of their shadows in the other room”.(@justrena)

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So a focus on the wonder of the objects and no distracting pro-detecting blather. Welcome to Ireland! Vox even feels free to add that the findspot can’t be revealed because of Looters with Metal Penis Extensions”! Imagine that being said in Britain (in public, anyway!).

In fact just this week in UK there’s a collective effort (via an academic paper) to dismiss Dr Sam Hardy’s damning conclusions about detecting . One author, Dr Michael Lewis of PAS, says their issue is in relation to “poor methodology and some basic factual errors. I am sure there will be people (ignorant in these issues), which we know to be complex, taking what is presented at face value. We thought we should highlight what we see to be incorrect.”

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Ignorant? Does he mean the public, who put up the money? Or farmers who are told it’s fine to throw open their gates to groups of random, nameless artefact gatherers? Or us, who’ve been studying the subject since before many of his Finds Liaison Officer left primary school? Or Prof David Gill who has asked in vain for PAS’s view of how much non-reporting is acceptable? Or EBay, which is full of metal detecting finds almost all devoid of a PAS reference showing they’ve been reported? Or the National Museum of Ireland and all the archaeologists in that country who consistently refuse to have anything to do with Britain’s approach?

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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