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.