Illegal Artefact hunting in Poland: Action Pandora (I)

Artefact hunting in Poland is rather like the Detector-archaeology of Denmark, where amateurs with metal detectors take part in conservation and archaeological programmes either as part of teams or as individuals working on the basis of a permit. In Poland however there are difficulties persuading artefact hunters to actually apply for the permits to allow their work to be integrated with the work mof heritage professionals and archaeologists. It is estimated that only about "1%" of detecting is done on the basis of the proper paperwork. It is estimated by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN) that there are some 100 000 active metal detector users in Poland, which means that there is an awful lot of illegal artefact hunting going on. By the same token, very many archaeological and historically important artefacts (in the Polish terminology zabytki) are being taken away from sites with no record of their existence. This is a matter for concern in a country like Poland in which all such objects are automatically state property, for the benefit of all ciitizens. In the past, it has been difficuult to prosecute artefact hunters unless they are caught in the act, or are selling on the internet artefacts that they cannot account for the legal origins of.

The MKiDN and archaeological community have long been pressurising the detecting community to conform to the existing legislation, that was liberalised in 2003 making it easier than it had been for amateurs to apply for permits (while at the same time making it a crime, no longer just an offence, to hunt for artefacts without a permit). This howver had little chance of success against the hardcore criminal collectors. Most of them search for militaria and other artefacts in locations deep in Poland's dense forests where the chances of them being located are next to zero. Most of them avoid selling artefacts openly online or discussing them openly on the several metal detecting forums. They know they are under observation and will be spotted. For the same reason, they keep their collections very much to themselves, especially if they contain old weapons, the Polish authorities are very sensitive about these issues. Nevertheless metal detectorists were frequently targeted during EU-wide actions against culture crime, such as Operation Pandora and Polish police often gained kudos from some of the impressive hauls of confiscated items during such actions.

The Polish artefact hunting and collecting community, unable to clean up their own community decided attack was the best means of defence. Starting in 2021, they began attacking archaeologists and their methods members of staff of the Polish conservation services, including reportedly by harassment. The boasted of their activities in social media. They feigned an interest in  the "well-being of Poland's heritage" as a smoke screen for their activities, which were mainly intended to deflect attention from their own artefact-hunting activities (here digging up and "recovering" artefacts was represented as heritage protection). On their Facebook page the PZE included a series of reports of allegedly improper activities and delays by individual (hard-pressed and severely under resourced) local offices of the conservation services and then the cases they began winning one-by-one in the administrative against them. In just 2022, they started 16 such cases, trying to tie up the conservation services in court proceedings for most of the year. Such an environment does not favour collaboration and it seems that the directorate of the conservation services had had enough of being forced to deal with these deliberately disruptive trouble-makers with their sense of entitlement.

It should be remembered that in recent years (and specially after the legislative changes of 2018) there was a group of law-abiding individuals and collectives of metal detectorists in Poland that fully engaged with the conservation programmes organised by the Polish conservation services and searched and documented their work on the basis of the legally-required paperwork, depositing the finds with museums as required by the permits. These people contributed to our knowledge of the European past.  

But alongside them were those that had no patience to file an application for a permit, or who knew ytthat if they used a permit, they'd actually have to identify the landowner and get permission to search and remove artefacts, and they would lose many of the artefacts because they would be taken for the public collections, instead of the artefact hunter's own collection. The result is that thousands of detector users went out illegally, with no paperwork, chose a site on the basis of how productive it would be of "fanty" (nice finds)  rather than what they'd damage by digging it - but also how visible it was to passers by, so they'd not be disturbed while looting it. This is how most artefact hunting is done in Poland today.

Illegal Artefact Hunting in Poland (II): The "Pandora Paragraphs"

(Second instalment of a two-part article - part one here).
The appointment of a new head of the Historical Monuments Protection Service, Jarosław Sellin (title, Generalny Konserwator Zabytków - GKZ) in January 2022 brought a number of changes. Among them is a solution to Poland's problem with illegal and noisy metal detectorists. A new suite of legislation is currently going through the Polish parliament that might be referred to as the 'Pandora paragraphs'. This incorporates novel digital surveillance methods into the process of 'civilising' (as the Sellin puts it) the metal detectorists and cutting out criminality completely. 

The idea is simple. Having the intention to go out and search a particular property for historical objects with a metal detector, the artefact hunter needs to obtain the landowner's permission. Instead of first applying for a permit, the artefact hunter uses their mobile phone to register the search and supply the relevant personal details, time, extent.  This is done through an application - in fact an entire ICT system called a "Register of Searches" (RPsz). The idea of this system is that it "supports citizens involved in amateur searches for artefacts" but at the same time facilitates the authorities to receive this information about what is happening to these locations, and real time information about each artefact dug up. These have to be entered in real time to avoid charges of illegal appropriation of undocumented artefacts, should a police patrol do a spot check.

Another important feature is that this application is automatically linked to an updated digital map on some form of GIS platform that will contain information of the location and extent of several types of sites and monuments under protection under Poland's several laws (800 000 archaeological sites for example). Polish detectorists have often complained that this information is not easily available to them. Now there will be a dedicated resource to help them stay off these sites (in the register of monuments or included in the Sites and Monuments Record and within 10 meters from them, historical monuments, cultural parks, cemeteries, graves, war graves and places of execution, as well as monuments of extermination and their protection zones). According to the revised law, conducting metal detecting searches in these areas is a crime that exposes the culprit to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to 2 years). If the artefact hunter uses a phone to report detecting on or too near one of these sites, it will be detected by the conservation authorities (even if the searcher does not register a search there, the phone can be traced). Then the procedure can be initiated to punish this offence.   

The attraction for the artefact hunter is that this revision of the legislation eliminates any barriers to getting out in the field, spade in hand, as quickly as possible in the form of an administrative procedure. It allows the searcher to avoid all possible designated no-search areas.* Amateur searches can be conducted there only AFTER first reporting them via the application (non-reporting at the time of beginning the search is also an offence, and again phone records can be checked).

It is in the treatment of the reporting of found artefacts that this system provides the most possibilities for administrators and legislators. It is mandatory for all found objects to be immediately reported, at the moment of discovery, via the application all found objects that may reasonably be presumed to be historical or archaeological finds.** These records stored in the application will later be individually examined by the staff of the provincial conservator's office and declared to be historical artefacts worthy of preservation in a state collection, or artefacts that can be kept (or discarded) by the finder and landowner (or treated as lost property under the regulations regarding this). The staff of the regional conservation offices will have six working days to prepare written feedback (in the form of an administrative decision) on each of the reported artefacts and instructions on further actions.

Obviously present staffing levels in the regional offices run b local government are insufficient for such a process if there are (as the creators of the application assess) 100 000 metal detectorists in Poland. These offices are therefore obliged by this new law to employ more archaeologists to fulfil this role. Rather like Britain's Portable Antiquities Scheme. The latter costs 1.5 million pounds for basic running costs alone, while local government picks up the bill for office space and staff salaries, and eventual expenses if staff have to go into the field. It is estimated (Mike Lewis pers. comm.) that each record in the database costs 30GBP to create, maintain and store. So the Polish government is being very generous with public funds to uphold archaeology. At last. I suppose it is not out of the question that as the database gets bigger, metal detectorists will have to pay some kind of a fee to support its operation. 

Another benefit is that by making use of the application for all people using a metal detector on land, this application immediately creates a full database of the personal data of all metal detectorists in Poland, in addition one linked to a particular phone. These are the new technologies that can be used to keep track of citizens' activities. The application gives law enforcement an ideal tool for detecting and at the same time evidence gathering on cultural property crime. Any seller in a market selling artefacts from metal detecting can be challenged to show a passing police patrol that each artefact on their stall  is on the RPsz database as having been reported and then disclaimed by the state. After 1st May 2024 when this law comes in, any objects not there are by definition of the new law illegal and the seller can be detained on the spot. In the same way, three guys in camo lurking in a forest glade with metal detectors (perhaps located with the aid of phone data) will either be able to show that the search area was previously reported, and all the artefacts in their finds pouches are already in the RPsz database, or again it is arrest on the spot. In the same way, a search of a detectorists house will be speeded up by asking the collector to demonstrate the items they have stored there were excavated before the new law came in (in which case they can show the permits)  and those that were dug subsequently, so should be in the application's database.

All in all therefore, this seems like an interesting resolution of the metal detectorist problem and if used properly a pretty effective way of  'civilising' the milieu - and locking up not a few of the more persistent offenders. 

 

* This nanny state resolution however still does not absolve would-be artefact hunters from the obligation to check the status of the land they intend to search as the database will not contain any information on restrictions arising from other regulations (such as environment-protection laws or information on chemical hazards etc).

** this is a key problem that will have to be resolved. Many Polish artefact hunters question the notion of "archaeological find" in the case of, for example, remains from WW2. They say they are not archaeological material, and so if they go out looking for it, they should not have to register their search. This requires separate documents from the MKiDN establishing with firm guidelines what is and what is not "potentially archaeological material", as this question is crucial to the whole working of the new system. This should not only include metal objects but also worked lithic material and ceramics. It should not be left to the amateur to select out from the material collected in an amateur search what they "think" is "not worth reporting".