“Beyond rare” Roman road unearthed in Midlands!

It is thought this may prove to be “world important”, “beyond rare” and “the only road of its type in Britain”..

.

Unfortunately, enough detail has been published to make it highly likely that thieves with metal detectors will be able to work out exactly where it is. Indeed, unless they are kept secret or constantly guarded such places – especially Roman ones – WILL be raided sooner or later.

With 27,000 people out metal detecting and all claiming they are law-abiding and doing it for the love of history it’s pretty obvious there will be a significant minority who aren’t telling the truth. A first step towards stronger legislation combatting them would be for the authorities to desist from telling journalists they are a tiny minority. How do they know? Because metal detectorists tell them? And how do THEY know?

.

__________________________________________
More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
__________________________________________

Final alert from the Stonehenge Alliance!

Dear Friends of Stonehenge

This is to remind you that the National Trust will hold its AGM on 5th November in Bath Assembly Rooms.

Trust members can vote for a resolution on line asking the Trustees to reconsider their support for a road scheme which would devastate the Stonehenge landscape by TODAY at 11.59pm. Registration to attend in person has now closed, but you can still register to participate on line. If you’re not a voting member you can write to the National Trust.

TAKE ACTION 1:
If you are a member of the National Trust please vote FOR the resolution. You can do so online. Details via the link below.
VOTE FOR MEMBERS’ MOTION AGAINST A303 AT STONEHENGE

TAKE ACTION 2:
Whether you are a member or not, you can write to René Olivieri, National Trust Chairman, and Hilary McGrady, Director General. Click the link below to send an email that you can edit.
WRITE TO NATIONAL TRUST CHAIRMAN & DIRECTOR GENERAL

Thank you! The Stonehenge Alliance

An urgent appeal to National Trust members: please speak up for posterity.

At the National Trust AGM members will be asked to hide Stonehenge from tens of millions of travelers forever with, at best, only a webcam view as they drive past.

.

Please say no. You own the right to see our national icon. The National Trust annual general meeting is an opportunity to ask the trustees to reconsider their position. If you’re a member and you haven’t voted yet, please hurry and vote online FOR motion 7 ‘A303 at Stonehenge’ by the end of this Friday. You can also write directly to the National Trust here. 

The Stonehenge cleft stick looms

In 2016 we wondered whether Brexit would mean major projects including the Stonehenge short tunnel are cancelled? We may soon hear. If it happens it will put English Heritage, Historic England, and the National Trust in a ticklish spot:

Will they express regret about it, which would make them look ridiculous?

Or will they welcome it, which will indicate their existing stance is ludicrous?

We’ll see. They may yet come to reflect that supporting the Government is riskier than supporting what’s right – since the former may change whereas the latter never will.

Damaging Christmas gifts for metal detectorists!

In 2011 we asked…

“Has PAS ensured that every landowner is aware there are metal detectors disguised as walking sticks and a new generation of deep-seeking metal detectors that pose a potential threat to archaeology?“

“The Rover UC metal detector is disguised as a walking stick and allows searching in areas where you couldn’t with common detectors. Without arousing public interest and getting curious looks, you can scan places you never could scan before.”

OK, the walking stick detector is rarely used but how many hundreds of thousands of detectors capable of penetrating far below the disturbed plough soil have been in Xmas stockings since 2011? By all that’s rational PAS should be warning landowners which detectors shouldn’t be allowed on their land. So why don’t they?

.

__________________________________________
More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
__________________________________________

Institute for Studies: a new Stonehenge theory

Ten years ago we reported …

It is sobering to think that everything that has been written about Stonehenge is speculation and therefore may be untrue. In fact according to this latest theory, it is:

“SCIENTISTS have started a fresh excavation at Stonehenge in the hope of confirming, once and for all, the ancient monument’s complete and utter pointlessness. Recent advances in carbon dating and DNA testing technologies now point to it having absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Henry Brubaker, chief archaeologist at the Institute for Studies, said: “The ancient Britons quarried these giant stones by hand, dragged them hundreds of miles from Wales, lifted them into place, stared at them for a bit, then wandered off and never came back.”

(Untrue of course yet isn’t that basically how its statutory guardians are wanting to treat it! How else can they justify damaging it?)

Stonehenge: words to bear in mind at the National Trust AGM

Please heed these words from 1927 by Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald:

“Causes-and good causes- are appealed for every day, and it is evident that not everything worth “saving” can be “saved.” But we have not two Stonehenges, and our generation will be vilified by all posterity if we allow the surroundings of this monument, the frontispiece to English history, to be ruined beyond repair.”

_____________________________________________

CALLING NATIONAL TRUST MEMBERS Please vote online FOR Resolution 7 asking the Trustees to reconsider their support for the A303 road scheme at Stonehenge. It will desecrate the World Heritage Site. Deadline 28 Oct. Or register to attend AGM on 5th Nov. https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/national-trust-members…/

Stonehenge: lest anyone ever forget.

By all that’s right and rational the care of Stonehenge should have been kept in the vice-like grip of archaeologists free of Government control. But no, 200 weeks ago it was hijacked by this bloke, looking for votes…..

.

.

He and his team wanted a tunnel and they wanted it cheap, which means short. But that gave them a PR problem because “short” also meant “horribly damaging to the WHS” since it meant hiding the iconic free view of the stones from millions of travelers and digging a huge access road within the protected landscape.

However, that wasn’t insurmountable. All they needed was a sufficient number of archaeologists to say such damage is acceptable. Which, as is clear to a dead dog in a cellar and UNESCO, it ain’t.

So where is he now? Nowhere. The electioneering stunts that men do sometimes live after them for reasons no one remembers. So just so you know, it’s a political tunnel. In Tom Holland’s words, Stonehenge has been “offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of electioneering“ – electioneering by the man who accidentally brought us Brexit and much that has followed.

A secret metal detecting rally today on “a cracking site”

“We have about 160+ acres of ploughed, cultivated, drilled and rolled available near Lichfield“. Its a cracking site that has turned up a lot of stuff from Bronze Age, lots of Roman to Medieval.”

So who benefits? Well, the attendees. But not the heritage because the true location has only just been revealed – to the attendees. “Details have been emailed out.”

Not to the stakeholders, taxpayers or archaeologists they haven’t. Why? Could it be that archaeologists know it is “a cracking site” on which random prospecting would be highly damaging?

.

__________________________________________
More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
__________________________________________

October 2022 Puzzle: Where’s this?

.

Clues:

1. “If those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God” [Letter, Pope Gregory to Augustine on conversion of the heathens 601 AD]
2. No vowels.