By Nigel Swift

“The Council will not grant permission to speculative metal detecting on their land, they will consider requests for archaeologist or educational projects or for location of underground services or recovery of lost personal objects.”

Bravo! You won’t find that phrase, “speculative metal detecting” used anywhere else by anyone ever yet that’s what 99% of metal detecting consists of! Random and object-centred rather than targeted, scientific and purely in pursuit of knowledge. There is nothing “responsible” about that. That’s why the Council only consider requests for archaeologist or educational projects on their land. They owe it to their ratepayers and the public whose knowledge it is.

I think it’s time the new phrase was adopted by other landowners as well as archaeologists and PAS. Speculative metal detecting: just three words that are owed to the public.

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More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting

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