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UPDATE ON TODAY’S ARTICLE:
It appears that 51 people have turned up to today’s Let’s Go Digging commercial metal detecting rally at Corse, Gloucestershire, and only one has decided to stay away in view of the serious public health implications. So 98% of participants have decided that all that matters is that “it’s legal innit”, perhaps an indication of the sort of attendees random pay-to-dig events attract.
Worse, because next week’s event will no longer be allowed the organiser has speedily arranged an alternative one on adjacent land (60 acres of pasture) on TUESDAY, so just before the lockdown “to prevent a medical and moral disaster” begins.
Let the authorities take note, in due course.
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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Posted late last night on the Let’s Go Digging Facebook page:
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It relates to tomorrow’s commercial metal detecting rally, the last one which will now be legal for some time, at Corse, Gloucestershire. You might well ask what sort of people are still going, whatever the legality, in the last few days before it is illegal, bearing in mind the virus is now running entirely out of control?
Two things are certain, these are not “amateur archaeologists doing it for society” (else they’d all be safe at home) and they ARE attracted by the rule “Anything you find under £3,000 is yours without having to split with farmers“.
Just how much of what is found won’t be reported to PAS and how much heritage knowledge will be lost as a result is a matter of speculation but what ISN’T in doubt is that the event shouldn’t be happening. So far only one of them seems to have understood that obvious fact. Hopefully, there’ll be others.
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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
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