British metal detecting: The Polish Key, what's in a Name?

[PACHI] In the third of a series on 'Archaeological Values of the PAS Database' in which I highlight a number of problems, I deal with thjis issue concerning teh artefactological research at its basis. This one relates to my home country, Poland.

PAS, Anti-Polish revisionists
 or just careless?

Looking at the potential out-of-place artefacts in the PAS database, I searched for 'Poland'. I'll deal with the coin finds later together with the Bulgarian ones, but I came up with something else in the 'Keys(locking)' category... oh boy.

Let's start with a fact. Since the mid to late 1960s, there have been numerous excavations in British medieval towns, from the 1970s and 1980s we have available all sorts of publications of the finds from these sites (and also in adjacent areas of the continent, for example here). Keys are not particularly uncommon finds in urban deposits in particular, and there they will be closely and securely stratified. Although I stopped doing finds specialist work when I came to Poland, I am pretty sure there's a wealth of published information in the English-language literature on Medieval keys. Lots. Sixty years of discoveries and publications, nothing to sneeze at.

So how come when you look  at this lump of stuff on the Internet that is often hailed as the biggest (and therefore 'best') online public database of archaeological finds, you can find a gem like this (PUBLIC-231258):

"Two keys with tubular loops on the bow are published in Ward Perkins 1940 (reprinted 1967, London Museum Medieval Catalogue): no.13 p140 (Aldgate) and no.14 p.141 (London), both Type VI, illustrated on plate XXIX. Ward Perkins suggests that the loop is for suspension as 'is well illustrated on the brass of Archbishop Jacobus de Sonno at Gnezen, Poland 1480; and the late date of this example, coupled with the elaborate form of bow which it often accompanies, indicate that this feature probably belongs to the 15th century.' Similar examples are on the database as WMID-4299E1, DUR-1F4252 and DENO-12B187"

Then compare that with the record of WMID-4299E1, the  "Two keys..." text is there, apparently exactly the same, but underneath are quoted 16 parallels, all from the PAS database. Then take a look at DUR-1F4252 where again we have been presented with what seems to be the identical "Two keys" text and then juist one parallel from the PAS database... It's not going to be a surprise then, that DENO-12B187...has... yes, you guessed it, the exact same "Two keys..." text and 15 of the 16 parallels from the PAS database.  Note that only one of those four entries actually uses the "references cited" field to give (something like) the full reference to the cited work, but two of them confusingly assert "no references cited so far". Eh? The lack of consistency is notworthy - that's why the records were supposed to be verified.

It seems pretty obvious to me that the 'research' that has gone into at least some of these database entries by four PAS recorders is only of the 'scissors and paste' type, and the cross referencing between entries on the same database suggests where that research was done.

Sixty years of small find publishing from Medieval sites all over the UK have therefore been totally ignored in favour of a quick glance at Ward Perkins' war-time catalogue of a single museum collection as it existed seventy years ago and its reference to an exotic piece of iconographic evidence half a continent away. (Even the Museum of London itself has a lot more keys now than it did in the 1930s, and not a few of them have, I think, already been published.) I think back in the 1970s and 1980s when I was doing finds work, Ward Perkins was still just about acceptable as a reference (though hopefully not the only one), today, I was rather hoping British finds studies would have moved on from that by now. This is even more disturbing if you think that it is the PAS database itself that some archaeologists are going to consult as one of their sources ofup-to-date information on artefacts and their typology (see here too). Otherwise, what's the point of having it?

I am of course equally interested in this Polish connection. Let's take a look at the phrase: 'well illustrated on the brass of Archbishop Jacobus de Sonno at Gnezen, Poland 1480...'. What an odd way to put it. It comes over as downright revisionist, especially when you know that the online database has no national borders. I am sitting in Poland reading it and wondering if the people that compiled it have any understanding or cultural sensitivity.

The four texts we are looking at were written by PAS staff between 2010 and 2016. Just two weeks ago, Poland celebrated 100 years of independence, so I would like to know why a Bishop in a Polish cathedral city is referred to as "Jacobus de Sonno" when he has a perfectly suitable name in modern talk. Here the PAS recorders have all obviously just copied and pasted something from a seventy-year old book, apparently without understanding (but probably under the impression that citing something exotic-sounding makes them appear 'erudite'),

First things first. The British finds experts of the PAS seem to think they are quoting a real name in Medieval Latin. In the documents referring to the Archbishop that died in 1480, both manuscript and printed, we find it was Jacobus de Sienno. So the name given by Ward Perkins and copied by the PAS is for some reason corrupt. 

Secondly there is a problem with this monument (part of it - a bit without a key - is shown here).  It is relocated and not now in the side chapel where that archbishop was buried. The problem is that tomb had two different monuments, a floor slab above the actual internment and this brass. While I understand the stone floor slab (now destroyed) can be dated to the archbishop's lifetime, the brass is of unknown date and purpose. This is quibbling, but it cannot be assumed that all monuments of this type must date to the precise time of death - as indeed other tombs in this very same church show very well. 

Anyhow, in modern talk, the churchman is normally referred to as Jakub of Sienno (skipping the issue of how Polish 'Jakub' in fact translates into English 'James' when it is the Saint of that name). Sienno is a small town in the south of Mazovian voivodship. I do not think it was ever called 'Sonno' (though have not the will to find out how the open ghetto there until it was liquidated in October 1942 was called in official German documents during the Occupation - I'd prefer not to contemplate that).  

But thirdly, and even more annoying, is how contemporary archaeologists are referring to the cathedral city, the seat of the first Polish rulers. 'Gnezen' is the German name. At the time of the publication of Ward Perkins' work, the city had (after 123 years of Poland not existing on the maps) been in independent Poland since October 1918, when it was called Gniezno. The name was changed back to the German one under the brutal Nazi occupation of Poland 1939-1945 when it was part of Reichsgau Wartheland. Presumably therefore Ward Perkins was following Nazi nomeclature in 1940. But today's writers using English? The town became Gniezno again when it was liberated by the Red Army on 21 January 1945 and remains Gniezno now. That's what it should be called by English writers. Terms such as Breslau, Stettin and Danzig (used for Wroclaw, Szczecin and Gdańsk) have here an emotive weight - in the same way as the term Auschwitz is used in a certain context for a location next to Oświęcim (and Birkenau instead of Brzezinka). 

So the FLOs should have pointed out that "seventy years ago, Ward Perkins stated that this form of key is well illustrated on the brass of Archbishop Jakub of Sienno in Gniezno, Poland who died in 1480...' . It is a shame that they cannot follow this with a more enlightening 'and now more modern research in excavated layers in urban deposists at.... has shown that...'

If you look at what the PAS themselves say, Ward Perkins' seventy-year old catalogue is used in  some 666 database entries. Thank goodness that Wheeler's 1930 catalogue in the same series was only used four times. 

The kind of archaeology that tends to be done with PAS 'data', that is lots of dot-distribution maps of emblemic arrtefacts all too frequently interpreted in ethnic terms is precisely the mode that was (only just) still fashionable when Ward Perkins was proof-reading his Medieval Catalogue and Nazi troops were occupying 'Gnezen'. The rest of the world has moved on from there, but in some aspects, PAS seems stuck in a timewarp. 

Polish Metal Detectorist Arrested as Result of Tip-off from Concerned Member of Public

 

Polish police protects heritage from
damage by metal detectorists

Ed Whelan, 'Hundreds Of Illegal Historical Artifacts Recently Recovered by The Polish Police!' ancient-origins.net 19th Ocober, 2020 

Recently in Poland, authorities have recovered hundreds of stolen historical artifacts in a targeted police operation [...], the cache of illegal historical artifacts was found in Andrychów, in the south of Poland [...] A local man had been on the police’s “radar for some time,” reports The First News. It seems that a tipoff led them to search the suspect's property. Officers “received information that one of the inhabitants of Andrychów may be in possession of prohibited objects,” reports Wadowice Online. This led to officers from the regional police headquarters, based in Kraków, and local police to raid the home of a 40-year-old man. [...] What the authorities found was a treasure trove of stolen historical artifacts. Hundreds of items were found in cardboard boxes all over the property. [...]  The owner of the illegal historical artifacts was arrested, and a file is being prepared in the local prosecutors’ office in relation to the case. The police believe that the objects were excavated illegally, and this is contrary to the Protection of Monuments and the Care of Monuments laws in Poland. [...] It seems that most of the artifacts were obtained by “illegal searches using a metal detector around Poland, without the necessary permission,” reports The First News. 

It is worth noting that there is a lot of public concern about the looting of historical sites for collectables and a long tradition of fighting looters. in part,, this may be due to a heightened awareness because of the amount of cultural property that Poland lost in WW2 both as a result of military action, but also looting and confiscation. Poland knows what it is to loose tangible links to its past. 

Artefact Hunting and Archaeological Responsibility - in Blog form

Artefact Hunting and Archaeological Responsibility
 (https://archaeologywassat.blogspot.com/)

Front Matter
banner/title page: Archaeology and Responsible Artefact Collecting

Introducing Tamara Kroftova

Archaeological Record ( Historic Cornwall ) 

Contents

1.0 Introduction 

1.2: What is "Responsibility"? 

1.3: The Problem 

1.4: About this Resource 

2.1: What is archaeology? 

2.2: What archaeologists study 

2.3: 'Digging Up Old Things' is not Archaeology 

2.4: 'Collecting Old Things' is not Archaeology 

2.5: Some Differences Between Archaeology and Relic Collecting 

2.6: Artefacts and Archaeological Context 

3.1: The Archaeological Record 

3.2: Archaeological Context 

3.3: Archaeological layers 

3.4: 'Deposits' 

3.5: Archaeological Sites 

3.6 Topsoil Assemblages 

3.7: Cultural Landscapes 

4.1 What the archaeological record looks like in the Ground 

4.2: How The Archaeological Record Forms 

4.3: Worm Sinkage 

4.4: 'One-Layer sites'

5.1: Artefact Hunting on Stratified Sites 

5.2: Archaeological Excavation Reading List 

6.1: Surface Sites  

6.2: Surface Survey: Investigating Cultural Landscapes   

6.3: The Characteristics of Surface Sites 

6.4: Lithic Scatters 

6.5: Fieldwork on Surface Sites 

6.6: Surface Survey with Metal Detectors 

6.7: Surface Survey According to 'Our Portable Past' 

6.8: A Surface Survey Reading List 

7.1: Interpreting and Documenting Archaeological Information 

7.2: The Archaeology Skills Passport

8.1: The "Responsible Artefact Collector" 

8.2: A Code of Ethics for Collectors of Ancient Artefacts 

8.3: Acquiring and Documenting Title 

8.4: Selling Archaeological Finds 

8.5: Selling 'Scrap Metal' 

9.1: Curating Archaeological Information as a Personal Collection 

9.2: Curation - Storage and Preservation of a Collection 

9.3: Curation - Documentation of Artefact Collections 

9.4: Curation - Access to Information 

9.5: Curation - Collection management 

9.6: Curation: Disposal of a Collection 

10.1: A 'Code of Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting'
10.2: Commercial Artefact Hunting 
10.3: Commercial Artefact Hunting Rallies   
10.4: RESCUE policies for the future

11: Summary 

Metal detecting at CIfA in Leeds "Metal Detector Use will Produce More Metal Objects"

The elephant in the room

This post takes a look at the videos resulting from the session on "metal detectors" that for some reason, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists decided to have at  their Leeds meeting (see here for the setting).

The first video that we find online originating from this session is a presentation "Where to detect? A review: metal detector surveys on developer-funded investigations"  by Stewart Bryant: https://youtu.be/KEUDRy4fQyk (13 mins)

Systematic metal detector surveys are increasingly being undertaken on archaeological investigations although their use is still relatively low and is confined largely to the south and east. This paper will briefly review metal detector surveys on developer-funded survey and excavation projects using the evidence of recent fieldwork together with the research and analysis of metal detector surveys undertaken by the Roman Rural Settlement Project. 

The presenter has basically taken the collaborative work 'The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain' (2016) and from it obtained information about (it seems), where metal detector use is taking place on commercial excavations. I must admit to feeling at a bit of a loss here. I work in Poland where metal detectors have been part of the archaeological toolkit since the 1990s - both in surveys as well as in excavations. I wrote critically [in Polish I suspect] on the way in which they were used in the latter back in the 1990s, if you please.  So what's this about?

Anyway, this seems to be a prime case to apply Flannery's "Mickey Mouse Laws" criticisms. He keeps going on about how the things he demonstrates are not surprising but they are "empirical"; it feels like we are back in the 1970s! It's a bit annoying that all he seems to be doing is reading from his own slides most of the time.

Dr Bryant seems to be saying that there are more metal finds and coins the larger area you dig, and that if you use a metal detector...  He shows that the size of commercial excavations across the country varies. He then argues that because sites in the north and west tend to be smaller than in the 'Home Counties', there are fewer metal objects from them, and so - he argues - the significance of the ones that are found is greater than further south and west.  A slide explains the 'impact of metal detector surveys on the recovery of coins' , and he notes that of all excavated Roman rural sites coins were found at only 44% of them (!) - but on 297 sites (8%), metal detector surveys had been carried out and of these 261 (88%) had produced coins (I suspect he means irrespective of its area).

What I am struggling to get to terms with is the underlying presumption that seems to be being expressed here, he gives the impression that the aim of doing rural archaeology" is to get coin assemblages.  He keeps going on about coins.

So he reckons that in certain areas of the UK, because the size of excavations is habitually smaller than the south and east, there needs to be more metal detecting on archaeological projects to get more metal objects (I'd say perhaps a general improvement of investigation methodology if they are missing so much material without a metal detector!).

But the aim of excavation is not to "get more finds", but to get information about the site (of which the artefactual content of the layers is only part). This is why I find the final comment a bit confusing.

"The question [of] responsible detectorists of "where to detect" could be  answered by 'in the north and west' where the relative archaeological significance of Roman metalwork recovered is arguably the highest"

It is not clear what this means. Does he mean these "responsible detectorists" should be knocking at the doors of all the commercial archaeology units and firms, museums and conservation bodies offering their services and references, so they can take part in archaeological projects? I hope that is what is meant. It is not clear however. He could also be saying that in collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record, targeting Roman sites in the north and west would lead to the recovery (and responsible recording) of lots more loose pieces of "relatively significant" Roman metalwork. The problems with this are (a) the sites would be depleted of those items before they could be excavated, (b) a great many sites in this area are presently under upland pasture where the Code of Best Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting in England and Wales (2017) prevents the responsible detectorist from hoiking objects out of the archaeological record, (c) many sites in these areas are sensitive to disturbance, and (d) if the metal objects in them are relatively significant on a national scale, should they be being decontextualised and disappearing into the hands and pockets of collectors anyway?

Reference: Brindle, T., Smith, A. T., Allen, M. G. and Fulford, M. (2016). The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain: New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain vol 1 Britannia Monograph series 29 (Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies) London.

 

Retrospect: Archaeological collection discovered after relic hunter’s death

Ten years ago: Monday, 29 March 2010 "Archaeological collection discovered after relic hunter’s death"

This article from Prague Radio of January 2008 seems worth posting here as an example of the size of some of the collections built by metal detectorists. Note that the photos show only relatively large pieces or nearly complete objects, this is obviously a selection of the sort of things that the detectorist was digging up. The rest was presumably deemed "uncollectable" and discarded - despite the fact that they too were archaeological finds. Once again note that there is no information about provenance preserved in this collection.


Listen to the radio broadcast here.

When a young man died in his Prague apartment two years ago after a cigarette set his bed on fire, the firemen who came to help made an unusual discovery. The man’s one-bedroom apartment was chock-full of strange-looking metal objects, obviously from prehistoric times. As the amateur archaeologist had no relatives, experts from the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Archaeological Institute were asked to go through more than 3000 items which would be worth millions on the black market. Miroslav Dobeš of the Archaeological Institute explains what some of the most precious pieces are.

"First I’d like to mention this spectacle-shaped pendant. It is one of the oldest copper objects in Central Europe - we are talking here about the period around 4000 years BC. Roughly ten such pendants have been uncovered in Bohemia, Moravia and Western Slovakia. Since we don’t know where it comes from, its information value is practically non-existent although its material value is incalculable.”

The archaeologists searched the apartment for any records that would show where the artefacts came from, but found nothing about the origin of all the bowls, cups, clips, bracelets, pins, rings and axes. Amateur treasure hunters don’t care about the analytical part of the job and dig wherever their detectors start to beep. This is one of the reasons why professional archaeologists see red when they come across these people at work. Martin Kuna is the deputy director of the Archaeological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. “Another reason is that most of these finds eventually end up in private collections where they lose most of their information, or scientific, value. And few are perhaps aware of yet another reason why using metal detectors for this purpose is harmful – when large amounts of metal objects are regularly brought to light, there are simply not enough archaeologists to examine them properly.”

Experts warn that the case of the dead collector with a huge heap of anonymous items is just the tip of the iceberg. An estimated 10,000 metal detectors are currently used in the pursuit of this hobby in the Czech Republic, and hundreds of thousands of treasures are thought to be stashed in private collections. Some treasure hunters cooperate with museums and only explore locations designated by experts, but on the whole, Martin Kuna says, something should be done to prevent people with metal detectors from causing more damage in the future. 

“The law is too weak in this respect. Even when you catch one of those people at the site with a detector and a golden coin in his pocket, you cannot prove that he dug it out right there. Perhaps access to archaeological sites for people with metal detectors should be banned, and perhaps users of metal detectors should be registered.”

I cannot quite see how you'd ban access to sites to only "people with metal detectors".

 

British Metal Detecting: Britain's 'Treasure Blip'

A few days ago I put up on my main blog a preliminary graph that showed the shortfall between the increase of reported Treasure finds and the estimates of increased numbers of detectorists. It raises a number of questions, but so far the silence from Britain's unconcerned archaeologists is as deafening as ever. They are in no hurry to confront this issue it seems.

But I was looking at the 'blip' in the figures on the right hand side of the Treasure trace. The peak is in 2017, is there a reason for this?

Now, actually when you do an Internet search for graphs showing 'the number of treasure finds between years x to y' (a pretty simple statistic, you'd think, in the circumstances), you'll find that over the past twenty years there have been all sorts of different versions with humps and hollows which later get smoothed out by some mysterious process of spin. But at the upper end of the line there is a big jump in the official statistics as they stand at the moment (2011, 969; 2012, 990; 2013, 993; 2014, 1008; 2015, 966; 2016, 1077; 2017, 1266; 2018, 1096; 2019- ????).

But this 2017 blip... I was wondering whether the blame could be put on the TV programme that the PAS unadvisedly got involved with, 'Britain's Secret Treasures' , but that went out in 2012-3. The warm cuddly comedy show 'Detectorists' had three seasons, 2014-7, however. Was the publicity that this gave the hobby the impetus for folk going out and buying detectors and then some months later when they'd got some experience with the machines making their first Treasure find? If so, the drop off in Treasure find reports the year after might possibly represent a disillusionment of the bulk of those that had bought machines and realised that it was not as cuddly-wuddly as on the TV.

Of course, I am impatient to learn what the real figure for 2019 is and intrigued what it will be for 2020.

Come on Treasure Registrars, get counting.

A search of the PAS database for Treasure records created from 1st Jan 2019 and 31st Dec 2019 gives a result of just 258 records

Permit-Regulated Artefact Hunting in Europe

[note: Raimund Karl of Bangor suggests that Austria
 should be 'green', not red   but his convoluted arguments
 for an alternative and  specific legalistic interpretation
 of the relevant legislation have not yet convinced me
- see his extensive comments in the comments section
 below and decide for yourselves, the Father-Christmas-
buried-in-a-flower-border  stunt shows the sort of
'evidence' this professor considers clinching]

I am writing something today and just wanted a quick aide memoire about where intrusive intervention in the archaeological record and in particular its Collection-Driven Exploitation (with or without metal detectors) is regulated or restricted by permit systems, and where it is more or less like the laissez faire situation in England and Wales. I quickly knocked up a map (in part initially based on this list with corrections and additions), but realised that since there's apparently not anything like this on the internet, it might be worth posting here. So for what it's worth, here it is, a rough version, green marks areas with liberal legislation, allowing digging, metal detecting and other forms of artefact hunting without a permit, red is where you need a permit. The yellow countries are those where I have not yet worked out what the situation is, though I expect that when I do, they will be red too. It is a little more nuanced than shown here of course (for example a permit system in N Ireland, but this gives a rough idea how it looks.

It is interesting to see how all the 'CDE-liberal' countries are on the North Sea and Baltic Sea littorals. Or perhaps its a northern European phenomenon, or somehow related to Protestantism?. 

UPDATE 4th November 2018
I have been contacted by a couple of people about this map and have decided to update it. The situation as I read it originally was ambiguous in the Russian Federation, where it seems that while known sites were protected, archaeological sites on private land were not and I was unclear on the position over loose artefacts. I have been told that since 2013 federal law No 245 has been passed and this now means that all movable archaeological objects in the ground, on the ground and underwater have been declared by law as State property (regardless of their registration, origin and relation to the known archaeological sites). 'They are not covered by the civil-legal definition of treasure, and therefore must be unconditionally returned to the state bodies under threat of prosecution'. That's good news and allows me to change the colour of the big patch on the right of the map.

Another change is that for some reason I had Latvia as a liberal country in the same way, but somebody pointed me to a very interesting document which acts as a sort of Red Book for Latvian antiquities (interesting with regard to the 'Viking' [not really] objects that are still flooding eBay from this region) which clarifies that Latvia's colour also needs changing on my map.

Also I was a bit wary of marking Ukraine green on the first version of this map, Sam Hardy however points out (“Black archaeology” in Eastern Europe: Metal detecting, illicit trafficking of cultural objects and “legal nihilism” in Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine- referring to the 2004 Ukrainian 'Law on Protection of Archaeological Heritage'Art. 8-10)

It turns out that Luxembourg has a permit system.

Albania's legislation is a bit unclear to me, but it seems art. 33 and 41-2 of this 2003 law (9048 for the cultural heritage) means artefact hunting is subject to a permit system too.

Also, the position with regards to Norway is unclear (Jostein Gundersen, Josephine M. Rasmussen, Ragnar Orten Lie 2016, ‘Private Metal Detecting and Archaeology in Norway’ Open Archaeology 2016; 2: 160–170). I am leaving it green, but it seems from the article that technically, under existing heritage legislation, a permit is needed to search for archaeological material.

I am struggling a bit with the five Balkan states. Bosnia and Herzegovina has a permit system for excavations on archaeological sites, but I cannot determine whether this also replies for searching for archaeological material where there is no known site, probably though this is the case. Mention is made here (National report on the implementation of the 1970 Convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property) however of the problem that reporting finds is not mandatory, so the situation remains unclear. The situation in Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro is unknown to me. I'd be grateful for more information to help me fill in the empty areas on this map.