US Archaeological Institute Urges US Import Controls to Curb Egypt Looting

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A delegation of individuals representing US associations and foundations interested in safeguarding Egypt’s antiquities from theft will visit Cairo from 16 to 19 May. Headed by Deborah Lehr, president of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at George Washington University, the delegation is working with the relevant Egyptian bodies to investigate how to stop organized theft at archaeological sites and preserve the shared human heritage of Egypt’s past. On March 15, 2011, UNESCO called for international mobilization to block the trade in cultural artefacts stolen from Egypt. The Institute has posted the call to action on its web page and encourages US readers to sign the online version of the petition. Recognizing that the market in undocumented and illicit artefacts is the motor of looting and smuggling, the GW Capitol Archaeological Institute urges the President and U.S. Congress to:

• Direct the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies to use their authority to prevent illegal trade in Egyptian cultural objects;
• Direct the Department of State and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency to implement import restrictions on undocumented artifacts from Egypt;
• Direct the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations to coordinate with foreign counterparts to initiate targeted law enforcement operations to seize stolen cultural property, arrest criminals and seize and confiscate proceeds; and
• Direct the U.S. Agency for International Development to grant additional funds for protection at archaeological sites.

In addition, the Institute encourages the International Criminal Police Organization to use its telecommunications system with respect to possible crimes involving Egyptian cultural property and to identify suspicious financial transactions which can lead to the freezing and confiscation of proceeds. It also urges the U.S. Congress to designate funds for the protection of Egyptian antiquities as part of its economic aid package.

Egyptian Authorities Arrest Police Officer for Possessing Artefacts

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Al-Masry Al-Youm reports ('Authorities arrest police officer for possessing artifacts', 14/05/2011):

A police officer and two others with three statues in their possession have been arrested. A security source said they were apprehended on Wahat Road, in 6th of October City in Giza, when a police ambush stopped their car for inspection. "The three artifacts are of the head of the pharaonic queen Nefertiti. One is 7cm long, and the other two measure 15cm. They are suspected to be antiquities," said the source. He added that the suspects confessed that they intended to sell the pieces. A police report was filed and the appropriate authorities notified to examine the statues.

[The article is accompanied by a photo of a wooden arm which does not seem to be related to the text]. I guess we will have to wait until tomorrow to learn if these are some of the missing Amarna pieces from the Egyptian Museum. Let us recall that it was reportedly a policeman involved in the attempted robbery at Karnak at the beginning of the 'revolt', and that it looks like the vandalism and looting of the Egyptian Museum was not the work of outsiders. Or were these three pieces of statuary looted from somewhere else? Or are they again tourist fake antiquities (copies of the bust of Nefertiti for example) which have been mistaken by Egyptian law enforcement authorities for originals?

UPDATE 18th May 2011: Several days on, we have learnt nothing more about these arrests and the objects that were seized. Silence. Why?

Interpol to Publish Photos of Recently Stolen Egyptian Artefacts

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Apparently the Interpol mission representative to Egypt, Stephen Tifaut and Egypt antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, met on 12th May to discuss "how to help find and return the 1228 missing objects from museums and archaeological sites in the aftermath of the January 25 Revolution". This follows a recent series of meetings with UNESCO officials who visited the country in the wake of the recent break-ins in the Egyptian museum in Tahrir (28th January) and several archaeological storehouses in Egypt (see the Egyptological Looting Database 2011). It is interesting that we are at last seeing the quoting of an actual specific number of items, 1228 - this will include the thirty or so still missing from the Egyptian Museum.

"Mohamed Abdel Maqsoud, the general supervisor of the minister’s office told Ahram Online that Interpol will publish photos of the missing objects in the international market, a measure that will help in recovering these objects". Let us hope it is not just "photos".

Abdel Maqsoud, and Gihan Zaki, MSAA director of international organisations, a number of police detectives as well as a representative from the tourism and antiquities police attended the Interpol meeting held on the Zamalek premises of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs. May 12th Interpol to publish photos of Egyptian artefacts missing post-revolution

The meeting with Interpol, according to Hawass, "is a security measure to help recover objects, if any were smuggled out of the country" but "Hawass tells Ahram Online that he doesn’t think that any objects have left the country, as security is tight at seaports and airports". Well, of course these objects are only missing because the security at the places they were permanently stored was not as adequate as it had been assumed to be. So why should places of transit be any the more "secure"?

Hawass' suggestion is a tacit admission that despite the laws and measures, there is an internal market in Egypt that can without any disruption accept 1228 stolen artefacts (including several as instantly recognizable as the Tutankhamun figures). Is that really what he wants to say?

Nevine El-Aref, 'Interpol to publish photos of Egyptian artefacts missing post-revolution', Al-Ahram, 12 May 2011

Mexico Gets Stolen Antiquities Back from US

In July 2008, the Casa de la Cultura museum in Cuatro Cienegas, Coah. was ransacked by thieves, who stole pre-Columbian arrowheads, Indian huaraches (sandals) and rabbit hunting sticks. Fortunately they were not lost to the community forever. Mexican investigators traced some of the missing artifacts to the U.S., and found that a year after the raid a Texan, Antonio Javier Reyes, from McAllen had acquired at least some of them by July 2009 and was trying to sell them. They also learnt that he had two prospective customers and the rendezvous chosen was Fort Stockton, "a dusty waypoint amid the vast ranchlands of West Texas", where "Federal agents caught up with Reyes meeting with two men on Aug. 4, 2009, inside K-Bob’s, a local steakhouse".

Investigators confronted Reyes inside the restaurant, saying he was wanted concerning the smuggled artifacts, court records state. Inside Reyes’ white Nissan Xterra, agents found the rabbit sticks. One of the men detained alongside Reyes told agents he was looking to buy the “rabbit sticks, (scrapers) and points,” or arrowheads, from Reyes for $7,000. The meeting inside the steakhouse was the culmination of several conversations and e-mails about the artifacts. The potential buyer and the other man, a friend of Reyes who claimed no knowledge of the artifacts, were released without arrest.

Reyes faces charges for allegedly smuggling the cultural property, and if convicted a penalty which potentially be up to 20 years in prison. Apparently:

Reyes has a history of dealing in pre-Columbian artifacts, investigators wrote in court documents, with customs officers seizing a cache of relics from him in June 2001. Prosecutors dismissed that case from federal court in Laredo weeks after his arrest.

Jared Taylor, 'McAllen man tangled in international pre-Columbian artifact smuggling case', The Monitor, May 07, 2011

Photo: K-Bob's Steakhouse, Fort Stockton TX, reportedly the food is good, but service leaves a lot to be desired.

Peru Gets Stolen Antiquities Back from US

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Peru has a 1997 cultural property MOU with the US referring to pre-Columbian archaeological artifacts and colonial ethnological materials from all areas of Peru. On that basis it got back from the US a mixed load of seized cultural goodies on May 12th. The artefacts were discovered as part of three separate investigations by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New York and Denver. There was a book found in the bagage of a passenger to Houston who was on an ICE stop-list, but also some archaeological material from other seizures, including a pot with a feline on one side and standing feline, A.D. 300-360, handmade textile and two headbands all of cotton, most likely excavated from graves along the Pacific coast of Peru, and a stone jaguar-human sculpture, 1200-1500 years old, likely Chavín or Moche in origin. The artefacts repatriated are valued at more than $43,000. Not bad for a group of old pots and rags, which shows clearly how the value placed on them by collectors is the motor for digging them up and smuggling them out of the country.

Apparently "this is the second repatriation of items to Peru. In April 2010, ICE and CBP returned 12 pre-Columbian human skulls, circa A.D. 640-890". That's collectors of "ancient art" for you, I suppose if they pay grave robbers to give them textiles taken from tombs to display as trophies in living room showcases, there's not much human decency left to stop them from buying human remains from them too to decorate the bathroom.

The usual speeches were delivered.

The press release goes on to say:

ICE HSI plays a leading role in investigating crimes involving the illicit importation and distribution of cultural property. ICE HSI uses its investigative authority to seize cultural property items if they were illegally imported into the United States. It also investigates the illegal trafficking of artwork, especially works that have been reported lost or stolen. ICE's Office of International Affairs, through its 69 attaché offices in 47 countries, works closely with foreign governments to conduct joint investigations, when possible.

ICE's specially trained investigators and foreign attachés partner with governments, agencies and experts to protect cultural antiquities as well as train investigators from other nations and agencies on how to find and authenticate cultural property, and how to best enforce the law to recover these items when they emerge in the marketplace.

More than 2,400 artifacts have been returned to 19 countries since 2007 including paintings from France, Germany and Austria; an 18th century manuscript from Italy; and a bookmark belonging to Hitler as well as cultural artifacts from Iraq including Babylonian, Sumerian and neo-Assyrian items.[...]

CBP is the nation's lead border security agency and is charged with enforcing hundreds of laws at and between our nation's 327 international ports of entry. As part of that mission, CBP enforces bi-lateral agreements and import restrictions on certain foreign cultural property and archaeological materials. CBP works closely with ICE and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to prevent the illegal trade and trafficking of cultural antiquities. CBP partners with ICE to ensure that illegally traded and trafficked antiquities are returned to their rightful owners.

These hundreds of laws include the ones the ACCG, PNG and IAPN are trying to have overturned to allow the free importation into the United States of illegally exported items from countries with cultural property MOUs with the US.

Vignette: Smuggled Jaguar thingy repatriated.

Big-Eared Hare and Hedgehogs on Egyptian "Hunting" Relief

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They've had a 'revolution' (looking these days more like a coup) and the country is in shambles but antiquities still fulfil their traditional role in international affairs. So Egypt is trumpeting the return of the "first artefact repatriated to Egypt after the revolution" (later said to be the second because the cartoonish relief from Mexico was afforded that status). Anyway this latest success in getting back stuff stolen from Egyptian antiquities stores and monuments and smuggled out through those supposedly "secure" airports and ports is a fifth dynasty limestone relief of a hunting scene 51cm high x 83cm in width which Egypt is getting back from the Antikenmuseum in Basel, Switzerland. The collecting history of this item is not discussed, how did it get into the Basel collection, where had it been (allegedly and actually) before then?

What are the grounds for demanding its return? ("The Basel museum volunteered to return this piece immediately after discovering that it was stolen from Saqqara"). "[Dr] Hawass will shortly be contacting the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange for an MSAA representative to travel to Switzerland to collect the relief". He'll have to take a big black bag with him to bring it back {but the Ministry already has one, found on a platform in a metro station}.

The Antikenmuseum has already sent back the eye of a colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III (c. 1390-1352 BC) found in 1970 at his funerary temple in Kom el-Hettan area on the Luxor west bank. The eye was smuggled out of the country and loaned to the museum by a private collector, where it was recognised by Egyptologist, Hourig Sourouzian, and returned to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in October 2008.

I wonder just what a museum does with something like this. Its an unwieldy block of stone with pictures of animals on it, some of them incomplete - going off the edge of the block. The picture does not make much sense. The photo being used in the media - presumably supplied by the MSAA is in fact the centrefold from the popular magazine Kmt (one might suspect that the appearance of this photo in the article 'The Egyptian Collection of Basel’s Antikenmuseum' by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli was the reason why the object was spotted by the Egyptians). Its a pretty poorly-lit photo and it suggests the scene shows hedgehog-like animals and a hare with enormous ears.

Presumably is we saw these figures in the context of the whole block they would make more sense, as would the block as part of the whole series of scenes from which it has been extracted, and that would make sense only when seen in its position in the tomb alongside the others, and that would make more sense in the context of what fifth dynasty tombs in lower Egypt generally show. What function is served by a contextless block lit more (or less) dramatically in a gallery in Switzerland, isolated from all of that? An "example of Old Kingdom art"? But are hedgehogs big-eared lagomorphs typically Old Kingdom subjects? Presented in an isolated decontextualised form, what information do they supply the viewer about Old Kingdom Egypt? Or is their function in fact to provide "information" (the function usually assigned to 'universal museum collections')? Is this not just a rich man's trophy, like some people collect shiny cars and glamorous trophy wives? Why do we need the public display of lumps of stone with ancient pictures of animals - especially stolen ones? More to the point, what are the Egyptians going to do with it when they get it back?

UPDATE: Alain Guilleux suggests the big-eared creature is a rabbit or hare but I suspect rabbits (orycytolagus cuniculus) were not present in Egypt in pharaonic times. I find though that the desert hare (Lepus capensis) was, and some individuals do indeed seem to have some pretty imposing ears.


Photo: A desert hare running away from antiquity smugglers, I wonder how many would, like me, prefer to look at a properly-presented exhibition of decent wildlife photography than some scruffy animal pictures on old ripped-off stonework.

Heba Hesham, Egypt to regain stolen limestone painting from Switzerland
bikya masr, May 12th, 2011

Nevine El-Aref, 'Old Kingdom relief first artefact repatriated to Egypt after revolution', Al-Ahram, 11 May 2011.

UPDATE- UPDATE 8th June 2011:
A followup article 'Switzerland returns stolen Egyptian antique' tells us the relief is already back in Egypt and adds the information that "The relief [...] was apparently stolen from the Saqqara Necropolis, south of Cairo, 10 years ago. The piece was not reported stolen but when its surfaced in Switzerland museum officials in Basel carried out tests to trace its provenance". Good for them.

That Last Post ("The PAS database: What people collect in the UK")

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Last night after I'd posted the original of the post below this, Blogger had an "issue" and the whole site was "down" (meaning it was "read only", bloggers could not edit anything). We'll be back online "soon" we were told, continually, for a whole night and the best part of the next day. Then somewhere along the line we were told that posts made in the few hours before the "maintenance" started would be temporarily removed until blogger was "stable" again, but then they would be reinstated. I was worried about some drafts I'd created yesterday, but when the thing came back online they were there, but the post I'd made on the PAS statistics has gone - vanished into cyber-Hades. Fortunately I have the whole blog backed-up, just in case.

I mention this because of a rather puzzling post made on the forum Moneta-L where coineys hang out in private. It was made by ACCG-lackey John Hooker:

Hi all, I rarely refer people to Paul Barford's blog, and I never quote an entry in full, but today is an exception! I am copying the entire post, just in case someone tells him what he has done and he removes it. Statistics are a funny thing, sometimes, what they show is not exactly the point that is made of them. In this example, it shows very clearly that most of what is being recovered from metal detectoring are accidental losses -- not from any archaeological site and utterly free from "archaeological context". However, if one is in the midst of an /idée fixe/, then this might not be apparent:

[ there then follows a cut-and-paste with a LINK no less of my text of Thursday, 12 May 2011: "The PAS database: What people collect in the UK"]

Unfortunately, Mr Hooker, his thinking being coin-addled, does not see fit to explain in what way the information I summarised and presented there "shows very clearly that most of what is being recovered from metal detectoring (sic) are accidental losses -- not from any archaeological site and utterly free from "archaeological context". That's like saying the Parthenon Marbles cannot possibly be from any Greek building as there are no column bases or worn thresholds in the collection. Lord Elgin's men ripped off what they thought interesting, collectable and displayable, and smashed their way through what they did not want to cart off, leaving a mess of the rest. That is exactly what we have in the metal detecting finds reported to the PAS (have a look at the UKDFD dataset for exactly the same picture).

Certainly I do not consider Mr Hooker has made his point about what I "have done". I think what I wrote reveals nothing other than what it reveals, which is that the mess collectors make of the productive sites they take things from is not in any way mitigated by a record such as the Portable Antiquities Scheme Database. Contrary to Mr Hooker, I hold that the "record" we have of the results of the activity which produced it is insufficient to say anything much about the sites and assemblages the material comes from.

Mr Hooker and fellow Monetans would do well to do some reading about how UK detectorists find 'productive sites' to collect from. There are plenty of 'how to' texts available now. (I know, they find reading real books about anything but old coins a bind, maybe they can find a GoogleBooks version).

Certainly, Monetans can be assured that the temporary disappearance of this post was a problem with blogger in general and was NOT in any way connected with any "realisation" that the data could be read another way.

[As for the"statistics", the post in question was to be one of two - there is something very "interesting" indeed about the figures I quoted, and I am surprised that Mr Hooker of all people did not spot it, but I'll finish writing that one later UPDATE 17/5/11: I see a few people are looking in at this post, so supply the link of the further text on the subject of the PAS database].

The PAS database: What people collect in the UK

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The PAS database is an interesting thing, there are so many data there, but then again so many things you can't fathom out due to the lack of data (unless you have some kind of special access to the hidden bits I suppose). But what can a mere member of the general public make of it? Well, the PAS keep plugging the "wotta lotta stuff" angle: in our database today there are x hundred thousand artefacts, in x hundred thousand records and x thousand ordinary blokes like you contributed. (Today, if anyone is interested, the respective "numbers" are 697,904 objects, 440,991 records, 18,984 people involved. Hooray, eh?)

But never mind the quantity, what about the quality? To what degree are the artefacts being reported by Joe Public at all representative of the bits of the British archaeological record they came from? I would argue - from several points of view - not at all. Obviously what the PAS records is only a reflection of what people bring it, and when most of their "partners" are artefact collectors, its going to reflect what people collect from the archaeological record, what they select from its rich variety for their own purposes. And artefact collectors do not collect just any old thing, and they do not collect representatively, they collect highly selectively, "selective pickup" we can call their process of exploiting the archaeological record.

Let us have a look at the quantities of material from two different categories as represented in the PAS database. Coins and non-coins. Search for "coin" on their database, and you get the answer

You searched for:
Object type: COIN
Your search returned 224357 results. You are viewing 1 - 30.

So 224000 of the records (or is that artefacts? Who knows?) on the database are COINS. Roughly a half. But there are very few sites and assemblages where coins make up half of - even the metal - finds. There is usually lots of pottery though. The search engine does not like the word "ceramic" or "pottery", nor "potsherd". The word "pot" produces quite a surprising result:

You searched for:
Object type: pot
Your search returned 593 results. You are viewing 1 - 30.

Whoah!! Ten thousand metal detectorists have been scanning thousands of 'productive sites' of all periods and in coming up to a decade and a half, only stooped to pick up five hundred handfuls of pottery? They must be stomping over hundreds of thousands of ancient and Medieval potsherds without taking the slightest interest. The same with:

Object type: Tile
Your search returned 586 results.

That's a pretty skewed picture of the British archaeological record, that's without doing a search for animal bone, slag, oystershell etc.

What about periods of the collected artefacts? More serious skewing. Let us do a Statistical analysis of the database for Wednesday 1st January 1997 until Thursday 12th May 2011 for example, let us look at the artefacts put into the database by period as a proportion of the total of 440 745 records. There are 15 299 Prehistoric and Stone Age items in the database (i.e., 3% of the material comes from a period several dozen centuries long). Of these 772 items were Palaeolithic, 5920 were Mesolithic, while the Neolithic was represented by 8100 finds. There were 5204 Bronze Age items (1%), and 46 845 Iron Age ones (11% of the total, mostly single coin finds). The largest group was Romano-British items (191 711 items –44%, again with a high proportion of coins). The Early Medieval period was represented by 16 786 finds (4%), mostly personal ornaments, while there were 91728 (15%) Medieval finds (among which coins and personal ornaments predominate). The database record also contains records of 64954 Post Medieval and 1679 modern items (together 15% of the total - but this material is selected out by the PAS rather than artefact hunters). Just 6385 items were of unknown date. This is very similar to the proportions of finds sold on eBay to collectors, lots of Roman, lots of coins, lots of ethnically-assignable personal ornament, little anything else.

Due to the manner in which it is collected, the PAS database is not providing a very accurate picture of what evidence for past activity is out in the fields of Britain.

More of the Sarmisegetusa Treasure Recovered

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Romanian authorities have recovered more pieces from a priceless ancient treasure that was looted between 1998 and 2001 from the archaeological site of Sarmisegetusa Regia (a UNESCO World Heritage site) in southwest Romania. The hoard is widely considered to be "the most important such find made on Romanian territory". Ernest Tarnoveanu, the head of the national history museum said at a press conference on Wednesday that a total of 232 artefacts, including a gold bracelet, two iron shields and gold and silver coins all dating from the 1st century BC, "were bought back from a German collector". It is known that there were 24 massive gold bracelets in the find, the 933-gram bracelet recovered this week is the 13th to have been recovered since 2005 (but 11 more are still missing).

Elements of the hoard scattered on the illicit antiquities market have been recovered over the past few years from private collectors in America, Germany and Switzerland. Interpol and law enforcement authorities of Austria, Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Serbia, Switzerland and the United States have helped with the investigation.

Prosecutor Augustin Lazar said 28 Romanian metal detectorists and artefact hunters have so far been indicted for plundering Sarmisegetusa, thirteen of them received prison sentences of between seven and 12 years in December 2009. The trials of several others are still in progress.

AFP, 'Romania recovers priceless ancient treasure', – May 12, 2011

Romania recovers parts of ancient Dacian treasure May 12, 2011 at 8:50 am

Hawass: Ka Nefer Nefer mummy Mask Returns Next Week

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A few days ago emails were being exchanged behind the scenes to establish the foundation for the report by Nevine El-Aref ('Egypt steps up bid for Nefertiti bust', Ahram Online, 3 May 2011) according to which:

Hawass told reporters that in the next week, an ancient Egyptian statue which was illegally smuggled out of the country will return from Switzerland as well as the Ka Nefer mummy mask from the United States.

A week has passed and the mummy mask in SLAM has not been moved a centimetre nearer the door. Who knows, or cares any more, about what happened to the Swiss statue? Why do the Egyptian media continually come out with stories which contain not a shred of truth? For whose benefit did Nevine El-Aref present this as a "fact"? What purpose does this serve except to make observers even more distrustful of "news" from Cairo?

Back to Square One at the Getty?

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It has been announced that Dr James Cuno has been appointed as CEO and president of the J. Paul Getty Trust to replace James Wood who died last June. The post of the Getty Museum's director remains to be filled. There have been a number of reactions to the news of appointment of Cuno:

The least impassioned is by Jori Finkel, 'Getty Trust's new CEO: Art Institute of Chicago's James Cuno', LA Times May 10, 2011.

Others are less sanguine:
Benjamin Genocchio, 'Why the Getty's Choice of James Cuno as CEO Is Clueless' ArtInfo: May 9, 2011,
Lee Rosenbaum, 'Archaeologists’ Red Flag: James Cuno Named Getty Trust President', Culturegrrl May 10, 2011.
David Gill, 'James Cuno as President of the Getty Trust: Reactions' Looting matters, May 10th 2011.
Peter Tompa, 'Cuno to Getty', Cultural Property Observer 10th May 2011 hopes that the appointment means "a new determination to get tough with Italy, whose demands for repatriation have seemingly escalated despite the Getty's efforts to seek accomodation" (sic).

One cannot but think that Cuno's appointment is in some way concerned with the attention that the May 24 launch of Ralph Frammolino and Jason Felch's exposé Chasing Aphrodite of the Getty antiquities scandals will doubtless attract in a few weeks.

Rosenbaum sees the appointment of the author of the controversial 'Who Owns Antiquity' in this post as potentially potentially damaging to the well-established international collaboration the Getty has established, she has written of him:

By taking an extremist stance that belittles the deeply felt and legitimate concerns of archaeologists and source countries to preserve archaeological sites and national heritage, he undermines efforts by reasonable people on both sides of the cultural-property divide to arrive at mutually beneficial compromises. And he self-destructively undermines any role he might personally have played in working cooperatively with foreign governments to forge mutually beneficial sharing arrangements.

Cuno dismisses such concerns, he says:

"In terms of my criticism of cultural property laws, I think reasonable people can disagree on these matters, and I very much look forward to engaging in conversations with colleagues around the world. I think we are all seeking the same thing: to preserve the objects of antiquity and broaden public and scholarly access to them.

Sadly Cuno here ignores the fact that the whole problem with the trade in illicitly obtained artefacts is that they are obtained by the destruction of archaeological contexts, sites, monuments and assemblages. It is not ownership or "protection" of the objects that is the problem, it is where they come from before they surface (from underground?). it was the failure to recognise this that was a fundamental flaw of the arguments he advanced in 2008, and it is sad that the new CEO of the Getty still has not taken this idea on board.

Commercial Artefact Hunting rallies in the UK attended (legitimised) by the PAS

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There is a useful handlist of the commercial artefact hunting rallies in the UK attended by the PAS between 2000 and today from the PAS website. The hyperlinks should give details of which FLO was there and what was reported. I am not clear whether this list means that before 2008 the PAS was not in attendance at any of the many dozens of commercial rallies that were taking place, or whether the details are now difficult to extract from the records. I note for example that the rally in Suffolk in 2008 from which emerged a fuss about me including a photo of the FLO in action seems not to be on this list. The map of commercial artefact hunting rallies in which the Portable Antiquities Scheme has been involved may not therefore be fully up to date. The geographical pattern it reveals is quite interesting.

Each of these places represents an area where the archaeological record over a substantial area has been depleted and in places destroyed by the selective removal of material. To what degree is this mitigated by the lists of a few dozen finds for the most part from unrecorded places within the original pattern contained in the PAS database? What was not recorded at these commercial rallies? How much money was made (including by participants flogging off the finds afterwards) from these events, and how much did providing PAS legitimation of them cost the public? It seems to me that commercial rallies are an especially weak link in the pro-artefact hunting arguments.

1998

1999

2000

Linkenholt 1st September 2000 1st September 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

Rallies that the Portable Antiquities Scheme has attended

Linkenholt 1st September 2000 1st September 2000

2005

Myddle Rally 2005, Shropshire 3rd September 2005 4th September 2005

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2005 10th April 2005

2006

Myddle Rally 2006, Shropshire 16th September 2006 17th September 2006

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2006 9th April 2006

2007

Weekend Wanderers at Billingsfield II 4th November 2007

Weekend Wanderers at Billingsfield I 23rd September 2007

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2007 15th April 2007

2008

Baddiley, Cheshire - 26/10/2008 26th October 2008

Fosse Way charity rally 12th October 2008

South Shropshire Rally 12th October 2008

Weekend Wanderers - Ropley (28-09-2008) 28th September 2008

Thrapston & Raunds Charity Rally 28th September 2008

Cliffe Metal Detecting Club Rally 14th September 2008

Trowbridge club rally 8th September 2008

Stixwould rally 5th September 2008 - 7th September 2008

Firle Rally 5 23rd August 2008 - 25th August 2008

Water Newton II 23rd August 2008 - 25th August 2008

Water Newton I 17th August 2008 - 19th August 2008

Weekend Wanderers - Ropley 27th July 2008

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2008 27th April 2008 27th April 2008

Combermere Abbey 2008 24th February 2008

2009

Weekend Wanderers - Broughton (20/12/09) 20th December 2009

Somerton 2009 8th November 2009

Weekend Wanderers - Otterbourne (18/10/09) 18th October 2009

Rotary charity rally/Wessex MDC - Hannington (04/10/09) 4th October

Combermere Abbey 2009 27th September 2009

Tickhill 2009 25th September 2009 - 27th September 2009

Water Newton Rally III 25th September 2009 - 27th September 2009

Glemsford Rally 2009 25th September 2009 - 27th September 2009

West Hanney 2009 19th September 2009 - 20th September 2009

Coinshooters Charity Rally at Padbury 12th September 2009 - 13th September 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 5th September 2009

Linwood, Market Rasen, Lincolnshire 4th September 2009 - 6th September 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 30th August 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover 27th August 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Hardwick 23rd August 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover 20th August 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Mentmore 25th July 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 28th June 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 28th June 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Mentmore 9th May 2009

CS at Wharley End, Beds, 2nd - 4th May 2009 2nd May 2009 - 4th May 2009

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2009 26th April 2009

Malton 2009 10th April 2009 - 13th April 2009

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 22nd February 2009

Weekend Wanderers - Twyford 1st February 2009

Weekend Wanderers at St Leanards, Bucks 17th January 2009

2010

Weekend Wanderers - Stone 27th November 2010

Marsh Farm, Sudbourne, Suffolk, November 2010 21st November 2010

Beckingham Hall (Tolleshunt Major) Essex Oct 2010 31st October 2010

Weekend Wanderers - Cholsey 2nd October 2010

Green Farm, Bacton, Sept 2010 26th September 2010

Isleham, Cambridgeshire, 2010 26th September 2010

Glemsford Rally, Suffolk, Sept 2010 24th September 2010 - 26th September 2010

Langham, Essex (Colchester MDC) Rally 19th September 2010

Urchfont 2010 17th September 2010 -19th September 2010

Grange de Lings, Lincolnshire 17th September 2010 - 19th September 2010

Andover Anton Rotary Club Charity Metal Detecting Rally 12th September 2010

Western Region (Dave's) rally, Broad Hinton, Wiltshire 12th September 2010

Wyverstone Rally, Suffolk 2010 12th September 2010

Fosse Way RABI rally 2010 12th September 2010

West Hanney 2010 10th September 2010 - 12th September 2010

Water Newton IV 10th September 2010 - 12th September 2010

Great Shefford 10 - Rotary club & Leisure Promo 5th September 2010

Detecting Wales Rally - Ludlow 2 5th September 2010

Bridlington Quay Metal Detecting Club Luttons Rally 29th August 2010

Weekend Wanderers at Ellesborough 29th August 2010

Weekend Wanderers - Ropley 26th August 2010

Weekend Wanderers - Ropley 28th August 2010

Hacheston 22/8/10 22nd August 2010

Detecting Wales Rally (19) - Ludlow Area 15th August 2010

Dewsbury District MDC Dog Tag Rally 2010 15th August 2010

Weekend Wanderers - Wendover 12th August 2010

Rally UK Matching Green 8th August 2010

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover [Hale Lane] 5th August 2010

WW Fritwell Aug 2010 1st August 2010

Weekend Wanderers at Wendover Dean 22nd July 2010

2011

Rotary Charity Rally at Brill, Bucks 2011 17th April 2011

Brampton and Longtown Rotary Club MD Rally 2011 3rd April 2011

The Rodings, Essex 27th March 2011

Rotary/LP rally - East Stratton, Hants (27/03/11) 27th March 2011

Weekend Wanderers - Crawley (12/02/11) 12th February 2011

Combermere Abbey 2011 6th February 2011

Burley Gate - Herefordshire - Detecting Wales 30th January 2011 30th January 2011

Weekend Wanderers - Twyford (30/01/11) 30th January 2011 30th January 2011

Weekend Wanderers - Broughton (02/01/11) 2nd January 2011 2nd January 2011

Although as will be seen, one of the Raunds events is listed, if you click on the link you will see that not a single item from this 2008 rally was ever shown to any FLO. That's Central Searchers for you, all "take" and no "give". So what if it was for "charity" when the people involved are merely there to pocket history for the pounds and pennies they spent?

Mining the Past for the International Market

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I have done a post on this before (see here) but somebody reminded me of it this morning ("I kept thinking of [name of US coin dealer] all the time when I was watching it") and I feel it is worth putting up again here. Shocking stuff. Sadly it cannot be embedded: http://youtu.be/Xw9obH8cgWU