If not for us the archaeology would be lost anyway...

dr gonzo

I know this forum absolutely frowns on derailment for the purposes of legal and MD discussion, hence SB's excellent sticky on the topic, however, I feel this is an argument that needs to be dealt with.

Without pointing fingers, this old chestnut is brought up time and again as a legitimate argument for the promotion of amateur archaeology. From the more flagrant interference we see in the UK through to the far less invasive approach we have here, the amateur is always quick to point out how we, as archaeologists, benefit from their escapades. Here is where they are entirely misguided.

Firstly, amateur investigation is inevitably biased towards a particular material, e.g. ferrous metals. Depending on the means by which the investigation is carried out, the archaeological data for that area is automatically skewed by the habitual collection of one particular material. This is not always through the invasive use of metal detectors however. A well intentioned, albeit uninitiated, individual would, quite reasonably, be expected to consider some objects or materials of more importance than others; indeed it is unlikely that a member of the general public would even be able to identify an archaeological artefact in the case of a vast range of materials (I should note here that this is not meant as an insult, many artefact classes require well trained specialists to identify).

This leads to the second point; it is not the object itself we are interested in. When an amateur removes an object, knowingly or otherwise, from an archaeological context, they destroy the only thing that matters to archaeologists, the contextual data of that object. In other words, when a metal detectorist claims that archaeologists should be grateful that he found an anglo-saxon hoard in the first place, he completely misunderstands what it is that is innately important about those objects. In removing them from the ground without due archaeological diligence, they may retain a bullion value to him as the finder, but they have retained little or no value to the professional archaeologist who must then go and piece together the chaos that is the field the detectorist has left behind. More to the point, what about the ephemeral record of that site? In removing finds from the field, the finder has not only destroyed the context of those objects he has deemed worthless, but he has also destroyed the site itself. It is now largely impossible for professional archaeologist to study the soil horizons and contexts of this site, and therefore the nature of site-use and chronology can never be fully known.

What needs to be understood, and what British enthusiasts just do not understand about Ireland, is that UK law represents the carrot, while Irish law represents the stick. They say, "its happening and we should reward people for at least bringing the objects forward", whereas we say, "don't do it in the first place or you can, and will, be prosecuted". The reason Irish archaeological law is so well thought of (for the most part at least) is that unwittingly, British law actually incentivises further invasion of archaeological sites, while we attempt to stamp that out as much as is possible. Ireland, as a result, does run the largely minor risk that accidental finds may not be handed in, but in contrast, the UK run the very real, major risk that members of the public will destroy their own heritage in the hopes of being reward by tax-payer money.

In summary, the reason we don't congratulate amateurs on their finds is because inevitably those finds represent the merest fraction of the picture. On the contrary, we would actually prefer that the objects were never found in the first place so that future professionals have a chance to investigate the site properly, and in doing so preserve it for posterity. Yes this runs the risk that we are losing material through natural erosion but that absolutely pales in comparison with the damage inflicted through the invasive methods of amateurs in other countries.


I don't mean to be offensive, because I know most of you are well-intentioned, but if a person is not a trained archaeologist then they can never truly understand the damage they do to sites that they interfere with, even in scenarios where they believe the finds to be out of context already, such as beaches, rivers, and plough-soil. I reiterate the point that it is not the object we are interested in, but the contextual data of that object, so unless you are recording your discovery to a professional standard then leave it where it is. As SB says in one thread, unless you deem a archaeological object to be in serious and immediate danger then the best thing you can do for archaeologists, and the heritage of the country, is to ring the national museum.


...But of course, this is just my two cents.I wrote this, not as a angry rebuke (I would have some nerve to ever try), but just as a means of showing another side of the coin. More to the point it is in no way aimed at anyone here, but merely an answer to an oft-posted argument. It goes without saying that non-archaeologists are the bread and butter of this forum and I am immensely proud to converse with you all, so please feel free to pull me up on the points you think are wrong

slowburner

To a certain extent, archaeology has its origins in the activities of C19th century gentlemen treasure hunters. Treasure hunting was a fashionable and sometimes profitable pursuit.
As time passed, interested people began to understand that simply collecting objects benefited nobody other than the collector.
Archaeology grew out of the need to understand the true story these finds could tell us.
The times of gentlemen treasure hunters are a relatively long way behind us now, thankfully, but there are still some people who just don't understand this.

Contemporary treasure hunters don't seem capable of understanding that the real treasure is the conservation, preservation and sound archaeological investigation of our past.

It should be pointed out that the rising popularity of treasure hunting shows on UK television, combined with the UK's different legislative approach, may be confusing some people. Others feel that if it is allowed in the UK, it should be allowed here.
Irish legislation on archaeology is never going to be amended in favour of treasure hunters.
That is something for which we should be both grateful and proud.

That treasure belongs to all of us. It is my past, my heritage, my treasure... and it is yours.
When someone fails to understand this and seeks out archaeological material for themselves - they are stealing from all of us.

While not everyone who owns a metal detector goes out to intentionally destroy our national heritage or find 'treasure', some do.
That is why we have strict controls on the use of these devices.
The 1970s saw an upsurge in this form of illicit activity by organised groups who stole, sold and exported many priceless artefacts.
That is why the legislation was introduced.

There has been a resurgence in this activity recently, and organised criminal elements have their eyes on our heritage again. The case of the raid on the Swords depot amply demonstrates this.
The heritage of this island is under a threat not seen since the 1970s.

The picture below shows a few examples of what metal detectorists are capable of. It was taken a few weeks ago at one of our most important national monuments.
The entire circumference of the site had been searched, dug and the sods replaced to hide the signs of their handiwork.

cfuserkildare

Hi,

As somebody who has been involved both in the UK and here in Ireland, I have to say that it is sooo difficult to find information about most sites here simply because the Irish system maintains the CLOSED SHOP attitude.

I worked for several years with the local council (in Scotland) on a tourism entertainment project where we had to most of our own research, which was not particularly difficult, where-as I have been looking for information regarding 1 lost village (which is only 700-800 years old) here for 3 years now!?!?

If the artifacts and hence the sites are not found, then a civilisation has lost its roots, due simply to the fact that nothing is known about its past.( Carrickmines is a good example) But in the UK and particularly Scotland you have to go back much further before the information becomes harder to find.

If a nation has no knowledge of its past, then it has very little pride in its nations past. If you see my point. National Identity is about more than what you have now, it is about what your ancestors achieved and created, this knowledge and therefor pride does not really exist in Ireland simply because it is hidden from the people.


Thats my opinion and I may be wrong, (but I'll never admit to that)

pueblo

Interesting post Dr. Gonzo.

As someone who gets immense enjoyment from the picking up pieces of pottery, bones and other stuff I find on the surface of the river bed, I always presumed I was doing no harm as I took it there was no context to be destroyed and I was reporting all my finds to the NMI. I will certainly re-evaluate my 'collecting habits' in light of your post. Perhaps there is context in the stray river finds after all.

For me a large part of the fascination was the object itself. I hold a medieval pottery sherd and I wonder what it was used for, who used it, what their life was like etc etc. This spurs me on to learn more about our shared history, albeit in an unstructured and haphazard fashion, which for the amateur is fine!

I accept and understand why context is so important, but when you say "It is not the object itself we are interested in" I think you are underestimating the power of the object to teach and inform. Surely we have learned a vast amount through the study of the actual artefacts themselves??

Even the standard definition of archaeology alludes to the importance of the object... "The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts"

That's my only quibble with your post, on the whole, this ameatur is in agreement.

slowburner

Just to clarify a point.
The aim of archaeology is not to find artefacts.
The aim of archaeology is to learn about past people, their culture and ways of life through surviving physical remains.
Some of these remains are as dull as ditchwater - to those who don't understand the aim of archaeology. The discovery of the barely visible remains of post holes in a mesolithic landscape is not going to cause wild excitement amongst the general public, but I've known archaeologists to get the shakes when seeing them for the first time.

Of course artefacts are an essential part of the whole process and of course we learn a great deal from them. Indeed, artefacts usually give the fastest indication of a horizon's date - especially when found in situ and in undisturbed soil horizons or strata.

Artefacts also provide us with that immediate connection to the person who made it and frequently, this gives us further insights into the society surrounding its maker.
Sometimes, artefacts can lead to a whole other line of enquiry. For example the Discovery Program is currently co-operating with Bristol University in a geochemical reassessment to determine the origin of the gold in the collections of the museum. So when you think about it, these artefacts have been telling us new stories since they were found 150 years ago.

This is the point, artefacts can only contribute to the whole story, they are not a story in themselves or by themselves.

DeepSleeper

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Hi,

As somebody who has been involved both in the UK and here in Ireland, I have to say that it is sooo difficult to find information about most sites here simply because the Irish system maintains the CLOSED SHOP attitude.

Leaving aside the whole metal detecting debate for the moment, I have to object to your suggestion that a closed shop attitude exists within Irish archaeology.

The location and classification of every single archaeological site known to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is available to everyone on their open-access website. The National Museum of Ireland is free to visitors. Numerous archaeologists (myself included) traipse the length and breadth of the country giving evening lectures to the many local, county, regional and national archaeological and historical societies in order to communicate their research to the general public.

I know you've been looking for imformation on Oughterard, Co. Kildare, for some time now, but your lack of success is not indicative of a closed shop attitude - perhaps no one who read your posts had answers to the questions you asked!! So two possibilities emerge - you have been asking your questions in the wrong place or you have been asking questions no-one can answer.

There are many unknowns, many possibilities and many theories in Irish archaeology - they outweigh the known facts by a considerable measure - so don't take it personally if you don't get the answers you seek - try raising a couple of hundred thousand euro instead and then you can hire a team to seek those answers for you!;)

dr gonzo

pueblo wrote: »

I accept and understand why context is so important, but when you say "It is not the object itself we are interested in" I think you are underestimating the power of the object to teach and inform. Surely we have learned a vast amount through the study of the actual artefacts themselves??

Even the standard definition of archaeology alludes to the importance of the object... "The study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts"

That's my only quibble with your post, on the whole, this ameatur is in agreement.

Youre quite right of course Pueblo, not many would say they got into archaeology for the nuts and bolts of the profession, it is the tangible material culture that drives most. My point in downplaying the importance of the artefact itself is that professional archaeology aims to understand many complex questions through a wide variety of techniques, of which finds study is only one aspect. For example, depending on the site, the discovery of a single specific beetle carapace may be a more important find then a gold torc because intrinsic/aesthetic values play no role in archaeology, only the derivable information is important. This is a point that many cant grasp. They see the discovery of the artefact as the fundamental goal of archaeology, and it isnt.

That being said, artefacts are of course inherently fascinating, and excellent tools for teaching, dating etc. So I do agree with you.


cfuserkildare, what do you mean by closed shop? Ireland is substantially better than the UK for the dissemination of general arch information. I may be mistaken but as far as I'm aware, there is nothing even close in Britain to our National Monuments Service WebGIS (http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/) which DeepSleeper mentioned. However, if you mean the availability of more detailed information is lacking then I couldnt agree more. Ireland has a staggeringly atrocious record of publication, only exacerbated by the boom years. There are thousands of unpublished excavations, of which 400+ are considered to be of extreme national significance. Archaeology 2020 and Research Needs in Archaeology make for quite disturbing reads, and they were both completed in the mid 2000's when there was still money to publish anyway, we can only imagine how bad things are now!

slowburner

DeepSleeper wrote: »

The location and classification of every single archaeological site known to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is available to everyone on their open-access website. The National Museum of Ireland is free to visitors. Numerous archaeologists (myself included) traipse the length and breadth of the country giving evening lectures to the many local, county, regional and national archaeological and historical societies in order to communicate their research to the general public.

dr gonzo wrote: »

cfuserkildare, what do you mean by closed shop? Ireland is substantially better than the UK for the dissemination of general arch information. I may be mistaken but as far as I'm aware, there is nothing even close in Britain to our National Monuments Service WebGIS (http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/) which DeepSleeper mentioned. However, if you mean the availability of more detailed information is lacking then I couldnt agree more. Ireland has a staggeringly atrocious record of publication, only exacerbated by the boom years. There are thousands of unpublished excavations, of which 400+ are considered to be of extreme national significance. Archaeology 2020 and Research Needs in Archaeology make for quite disturbing reads, and they were both completed in the mid 2000's when there was still money to publish anyway, we can only imagine how bad things are now!

We are streets ahead of the UK in terms of the accessibility of archaeological information to Joe Public and the degree to which research can be achieved online - streets ahead.
Does the UK have anything as useful as our own OSI map viewer, for example?
In addition to the National Monuments Viewer mentioned above, we have the following online resources:

http://www.excavations.ie/Pages/HomePage.php

http://heritagecouncil.ie/unpublished_excavations/section1.html

http://archaeology.nra.ie

As DeepSleeper said, there is a wealth of information available to the public in the National Museum too (the topographical files and more). Any serious enquiry into matters archaeological, will inevitably involve legwork at some point to delve deeper than is possible online. More and more material is becoming available digitally - that's the nature of the internet beast - but sometimes you have to get on your bike and actually handle paper :eek:

However, we share a common problem with the UK in that much of the funding for digs during the boom years came from developers or other private interests and reports on excavations were not widely released or published. Other reports have not been widely published recently, simply due to a lack of funding.
There's quite an interesting discussion on the subject of 'grey literature' here:
http://www.seandalaiocht.com/1/post/2010/04/archaeology-and-grey-literature-a-hidden-treasure.html


Here's the pdf mentioned by Dr.Gonzo above:
http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Archaeology/Archaelogy_20_20.pdf

One of the many problems affecting Irish archaeology is summed up here;

The current fragmentation and sectional institutional arrangement of those State bodies charged with protecting Ireland’s archaeological heritage

This fragmentation has reduced efficiencies and effectiveness and has led to confusion regarding responsibilities.
In the Republic of Ireland, the National Monuments Section is within the remit of the Department of the Environment,
Heritage and Local Government. The Office of Public Works, which has a duty of care for State historic properities,
including National Monuments, is under the Department of Finance. The National Museum is under the aegis of the
Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. Clearly a more coherent institutional structure is an imperative

Reader1937

So, don't break the law and enjoy discovering and looking into the past. Not so grim. It is a small thing, but there are no treasure hunters as such, just people who give into the urge, for a vast number of reasons. It is in us all to some extent, "good" and "bad". As it is part of the human condition, strict prohibition may not work in the long run. It will come out somewhere. Access and regulation may allow people who have genuine interest add to the nations understanding of the past without feeling guilty. Given that Archaeology is for the entire nation, it belongs to the entire nation and the entire nation has private access to it, education is the key.

Meathlass

Reader1937 wrote: »

So, don't break the law and enjoy discovering and looking into the past. Not so grim. It is a small thing, but there are no treasure hunters as such, just people who give into the urge, for a vast number of reasons. It is in us all to some extent, "good" and "bad". As it is part of the human condition, strict prohibition may not work in the long run. It will come out somewhere. Access and regulation may allow people who have genuine interest add to the nations understanding of the past without feeling guilty. Given that Archaeology is for the entire nation, it belongs to the entire nation and the entire nation has private access to it, education is the key.

Education is the key here. People need to be trained to go on site and partake in excavations if that's what they are interested in. I wouldn't advocate relaxing our strict law on metal detecting at all.

cfuserkildare

DeepSleeper wrote: »

Leaving aside the whole metal detecting debate for the moment, I have to object to your suggestion that a closed shop attitude exists within Irish archaeology.

The location and classification of every single archaeological site known to the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is available to everyone on their open-access website. The National Museum of Ireland is free to visitors. Numerous archaeologists (myself included) traipse the length and breadth of the country giving evening lectures to the many local, county, regional and national archaeological and historical societies in order to communicate their research to the general public.

I know you've been looking for imformation on Oughterard, Co. Kildare, for some time now, but your lack of success is not indicative of a closed shop attitude - perhaps no one who read your posts had answers to the questions you asked!! So two possibilities emerge - you have been asking your questions in the wrong place or you have been asking questions no-one can answer.

There are many unknowns, many possibilities and many theories in Irish archaeology - they outweigh the known facts by a considerable measure - so don't take it personally if you don't get the answers you seek - try raising a couple of hundred thousand euro instead and then you can hire a team to seek those answers for you!;)

Yeh, My terminology may be a little off there.

It is just so much easier to find information in the UK than it is here.
As regards the websites, it is great that we can find out where something is here, but that is it, somebody finds a dolmen or the ruins of a church or some-such thing and it gets registered, but then what? It is just a note on a website and that is it. Little else is released about it.

Cheers.

Meathlass

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Yeh, My terminology may be a little off there.

It is just so much easier to find information in the UK than it is here.
As regards the websites, it is great that we can find out where something is here, but that is it, somebody finds a dolmen or the ruins of a church or some-such thing and it gets registered, but then what? It is just a note on a website and that is it. Little else is released about it.

Cheers.

Hi cfuserkildare. I'm not familar with the UK system but how is it different to here? Is it that more information is visibly available, perhaps as a result of the many voluntary archaeological and historical societies there?

Once a site is registered here the info on it will be published by the ASI with a link to any other locations where information may be already available e.g. in articles etc. I presume little else is released as there is little else to say! Most of these small sites, particularly early med church ruins are not complex archaeological ruins.

We are dependant on graduates doing further research into all these areas.

cfuserkildare

Hi Meathlass,

Regarding availability of information in the UK, It is sooo much easier to find info about most sites, where-as trying to find solid data here is like juggling fire-sticks in zero gravity.

Between land-owners greed and a general sort of "who cares atitude" perhaps people will never know about the Ireland that was here before 1916!

robp

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Hi Meathlass,

Regarding availability of information in the UK, It is sooo much easier to find info about most sites, where-as trying to find solid data here is like juggling fire-sticks in zero gravity.

Between land-owners greed and a general sort of "who cares atitude" perhaps people will never know about the Ireland that was here before 1916!

The UK has a lot more volunteer run local archaeology societies then Ireland. The UK has about 6,000 archaeologists mostly in the private sector but with a good smack of council archaeologists who probably hep to make information available. We have about 200-500 archaeologists and I think less than 10 council archaeologists. The UK also probably has far more medieval records etc. With that in mind we do pretty well at making information available. I suspect your not comparing like with like. The beauty of the archaeology.ie website is that so so many sites become noticeable that we might be overwhelmed with all these little unexcavated sites while in the UK people normally drift towards big impressive sites and never hear about the little sites. Some counties here don't have all the info up on archaeology.ie but others like Waterford have excellent little summaries.

DeepSleeper

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Yeh, My terminology may be a little off there.

It is just so much easier to find information in the UK than it is here.
As regards the websites, it is great that we can find out where something is here, but that is it, somebody finds a dolmen or the ruins of a church or some-such thing and it gets registered, but then what? It is just a note on a website and that is it. Little else is released about it.

Cheers.

To be fair to cfuserkildare, there is the CANMORE resource in Scotland which is very impressive - I'm not sure that anything like that is available in England, Wales or Ireland, but then I'm not sure on the Canmore coverage - all sites or a selection?

Do remember though that the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is in a sort of transition - they have focussed in recent years on online resources, but they have in the past published detailed county inventories for Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, south Sligo, Meath, Offaly, Laois, north Tipperary, Wicklow, Carlow, Wexford, Waterford, Cork (5 volumes), west Galway, north Galway and south Kerry, so there are tens of thousands of monuments with basic published descriptions. Louth has been taken one step further, with a full survey also published, and if you add in the Co Down and Co Armagh surveys in the North, then you have a very large dataset available (though on a library shelf, not online). No sign of Kildare yet though - I really hope they are given the resources to get back to publishing again...

DeepSleeper

Here's a link to the webpage which lists the publications of the National Monuments Service (including the Archaeological Survey of Ireland):

http://www.archaeology.ie/PublicationsFormsLegislation/

Quite impressive really - I didn't realise until now that they have scanned a few volumes of the Megalithic Survey of Ireland and made them freely available on line on this page! Well done NMS!

cfuserkildare

DeepSleeper wrote: »

To be fair to cfuserkildare, there is the CANMORE resource in Scotland which is very impressive - I'm not sure that anything like that is available in England, Wales or Ireland, but then I'm not sure on the Canmore coverage - all sites or a selection?

Do remember though that the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is in a sort of transition - they have focussed in recent years on online resources, but they have in the past published detailed county inventories for Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, south Sligo, Meath, Offaly, Laois, north Tipperary, Wicklow, Carlow, Wexford, Waterford, Cork (5 volumes), west Galway, north Galway and south Kerry, so there are tens of thousands of monuments with basic published descriptions. Louth has been taken one step further, with a full survey also published, and if you add in the Co Down and Co Armagh surveys in the North, then you have a very large dataset available (though on a library shelf, not online). No sign of Kildare yet though - I really hope they are given the resources to get back to publishing again...

Yeh,

Pity that they haven't covered Kildare, considering how historically important Kildare is.
From being the seat of the Fitzgeralds, to having the oldest finds of a settled village. It is a very important county in Irelands cultural developement.

slowburner

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Yeh,

Pity that they haven't covered Kildare, considering how historically important Kildare is.
From being the seat of the Fitzgeralds, to having the oldest finds of a settled village. It is a very important county in Irelands cultural developement.

Every county is important.

cfuserkildare

Very True.

bawn79

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Very True.

Just checked the Archaeology.ie database / map and it seems that most of the descriptions for sites in Kildare are online.
For example
Newcastle was first mentioned as a royal manor in 1215 and had borough status by the late fifteenth century. The settlement was a linear one based on a single street, running east-west. The marketplace was located in the roughly sub-triangular space in front of the church.
Compiled by Geraldine Stout

Mountainsandh

DeepSleeper wrote: »

Do remember though that the Archaeological Survey of Ireland is in a sort of transition - they have focussed in recent years on online resources, but they have in the past published detailed county inventories for Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, south Sligo, Meath, Offaly, Laois, north Tipperary, Wicklow, Carlow, Wexford, Waterford, Cork (5 volumes), west Galway, north Galway and south Kerry, so there are tens of thousands of monuments with basic published descriptions. Louth has been taken one step further, with a full survey also published, and if you add in the Co Down and Co Armagh surveys in the North, then you have a very large dataset available (though on a library shelf, not online). No sign of Kildare yet though - I really hope they are given the resources to get back to publishing again...

Me too, I've been waiting for the South Tipp one for 10 years or so.
I have the Waterford one and love it, I find it easier to remember the paper form... sometimes.

bawn79

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Me too, I've been waiting for the South Tipp one for 10 years or so.
I have the Waterford one and love it, I find it easier to remember the paper form... sometimes.

I was thinking - I wonder would it be possible to make a "boot-leg" South Tipp version from the archaeology.ie website. Copying the descriptions from the site into a word document.
Bit of work in it but with a few people collaborating might not be so bad (for example one person copying all the standing stone entries, one doing the stone row entries and then putting them all together)

Meathlass

bawn79 wrote: »

I was thinking - I wonder would it be possible to make a "boot-leg" South Tipp version from the archaeology.ie website. Copying the descriptions from the site into a word document.
Bit of work in it but with a few people collaborating might not be so bad (for example one person copying all the standing stone entries, one doing the stone row entries and then putting them all together)

You could just print out all the entries for South Tipp and bind them. You'd have a lot more information as well than the inventories where the descriptions are generally quite short.

RDM_83 again

I agree with the sentiments of Dr gonzo and Slowburner and I'm not a big fan of some of the ideas behind community Archaeology and I have no time for the way the UK treats metal detecting but perhaps its overstating the case a little in relation to what most archaeology in Ireland is, development led archaeology with rushed timetables perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing if after the professionals have completed their tender amateurs would be allowed into the area that is going to be destroyed by development anyway obviously I can forsee numerous problems but it still might be beneficial

ezra_pound

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/looted-artefacts-recovered-in-uk-to-go-on-display-1.1400216

Metal detector scum.
That is all.

robp

ezra_pound wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/looted-artefacts-recovered-in-uk-to-go-on-display-1.1400216

Metal detector scum.
That is all.

The sheer scale of that haul is frightening. Probably more silver and bronze then 5 maybe 10 years of boom time contract archaeology.

slowburner

The Irish Times picture is of the Mooghaun Hoard. It's a bit misleading.

bridgetown1

DeepSleeper wrote: »

Here's a link to the webpage which lists the publications of the National Monuments Service (including the Archaeological Survey of Ireland):

http://www.archaeology.ie/PublicationsFormsLegislation/

Quite impressive really - I didn't realise until now that they have scanned a few volumes of the Megalithic Survey of Ireland and made them freely available on line on this page! Well done NMS!

I have printed off the Cork, Kerry, Tipp and Limerick one. A fabulous resource, especially the plans/diagrams!

bridgetown1

slowburner wrote: »

The picture ...... shows a few examples of what metal detectorists are capable of. It was taken a few weeks ago at one of our most important national monuments.
The entire circumference of the site had been searched, dug and the sods replaced to hide the signs of their handiwork.

What site?

Meathlass

I'd love to know where abouts in Tipp these artefacts were looted from, particularly the 28 Medieval coins found in the one location.

robp

Meathlass wrote: »

I'd love to know where abouts in Tipp these artefacts were looted from, particularly the 28 Medieval coins found in the one location.

Considering the finder is dead it might be the case it is not known.

slowburner

Meathlass wrote: »

I'd love to know where abouts in Tipp these artefacts were looted from, particularly the 28 Medieval coins found in the one location.

robp wrote: »

Considering the finder is dead it might be the case it is not known.

A little more news on the subject here
and the National Museum's press release here

899 artefacts.

dr gonzo

If I could just direct everyone's attention to this comment, taken directly from the journal article posted by SB.

"The government should encourage people to treasure hunt and give a finders fee. Otherwise it will just remain buried. It’s no good in the ground."

This is the exact mentality that made me write the the original post in this thread, and while I dont mean to attack the fella when hes not here to defend himself, I merely highlight his comment as a perfect, succinct example of everything that is wrong with the popular mentality for archaeology.

In one fell swoop he not only advocates the rampant, amateur destruction of our country's heritage, but he would then like us to sell it for profit...

Meathlass

Well said dr gonzo. I also saw another comment on Facebook asking how could this be called looting as the person who originally owned these artefacts is long dead so they don't belong to anyone.

I think the main problem here is that people just don't realise the for archaeologists the artefact isn't the most important thing, it's the 'context' the artefact is found in. On its own, just wrenched out of the ground it is devoid of all its associated information and little more than a pretty keepsake.

I get the impression from this newstory that they may have a lead on the other person involved in this so hopefully jail sentances will be handed down.

dr gonzo

Dear Jesus, I thought the journal was bad...

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/nowhere-safe-as-treasure-hunters-plunder-our-heritage-sites-for-profit-29285797.html

I had to stop reading the comments for this article because they were making me sick to my stomach. The attitude of the people of Ireland to their own heritage is just abominable. Happy enough to go on about the bloody celts (a myth) while simultaneously advocating the plunder and sale of archaeology to the highest bidder...

Makes me sick.

I apologise, I appear to have ceased adding anything useful to this thread, but I had to vent.

tayto lover

dr gonzo wrote: »

If I could just direct everyone's attention to this comment, taken directly from the journal article posted by SB.

"The government should encourage people to treasure hunt and give a finders fee. Otherwise it will just remain buried. It’s no good in the ground."

This is the exact mentality that made me write the the original post in this thread, and while I dont mean to attack the fella when hes not here to defend himself, I merely highlight his comment as a perfect, succinct example of everything that is wrong with the popular mentality for archaeology.

In one fell swoop he not only advocates the rampant, amateur destruction of our country's heritage, but he would then like us to sell it for profit...

But isn't the Govt giving away part of our heritage too in the form of our oil and gas which would actually sustain the country. So I find their comments a bit hypocritical on matters of this nature.
There should be serious fines for anyone plundering our treasure. I love a visit to the museum.

dr gonzo

tayto lover wrote: »

But isn't the Govt giving away part of our heritage too in the form of our oil and gas which would actually sustain the country. So I find their comments a bit hypocritical on matters of this nature.
There should be serious fines for anyone plundering our treasure. I love a visit to the museum.

They are outsourcing Ireland's oil and gas fields because we, in absolutely no way, have the money or resources to access them. It costs a couple of million each time to sink a well, and the success rate for the Irish reserves is 1 in every 124 or something equally outrageous; compare that to Norway where its 1 in 3. This is why Norway could privatise their reserves and why we cannot. If they arent contracted out to Shell, Exxon etc then we get nothing.

More to the point is this really the same thing? Archaeological materials have more then just an intrinsic value. The museum is tasked with protecting them, not just because they are expensive, but because they represent the heritage of the country and its people. We may be in a recession now but we have a duty to future generations to safe-guard the irreplaceable against the quest for a quick buck. I can certainly see what you would bring up our oil and gas reserves as example if this is the point you were making, but those reserves only represent money, nothing more, and futhermore, we are getting a good deal on them.


I hope that didnt sound snarky by the way tayto lover? its always great to debate these issues, to see all sides.

tayto lover

dr gonzo wrote: »

They are outsourcing Ireland's oil and gas fields because we, in absolutely no way, have the money or resources to access them. It costs a couple of million each time to sink a well, and the success rate for the Irish reserves is 1 in every 124 or something equally outrageous; compare that to Norway where its 1 in 3. This is why Norway could privatise their reserves and why we cannot. If they arent contracted out to Shell, Exxon etc then we get nothing.

More to the point is this really the same thing? Archaeological materials have more then just an intrinsic value. The museum is tasked with protecting them, not just because they are expensive, but because they represent the heritage of the country and its people. We may be in a recession now but we have a duty to future generations to safe-guard the irreplaceable against the quest for a quick buck. I can certainly see what you would bring up our oil and gas reserves as example if this is the point you were making, but those reserves only represent money, nothing more, and futhermore, we are getting a good deal on them.


I hope that didnt sound snarky by the way tayto lover? its always great to debate these issues, to see all sides.

I agree with what you are saying as I didn't know the success ratio was as bad but I would love to read a link to the highlighted bit.
Not questioning your accuracy, just interested.

slowburner

tayto lover wrote: »

I agree with what you are saying as I didn't know the success ratio was as bad but I would love to read a link to the highlighted bit.
Not questioning your accuracy, just interested.

This is the Archaeology forum folks.

cfuserkildare

There are 2 issues here that are vying for position here,

Yes the artifacts need to be held in context, however, if they are not found then we have no idea what our past was like.
If a society doesn't know about they're past, how can they have or maintain any sort of social context or identity?

Meathlass

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Yes the artifacts need to be held in context, however, if they are not found then we have no idea what our past was like.

But if they're looted then they give us very little new information about our past anyway. Looking at the 899 items recovered by the museum there are a large amount of utilitarian household and clothing items e.g. belt buckles. There's also more unusual but by no means rare socketed axes. The coins and gun money while always nice to find don't really do anything bar date a certain layer.

Imagine though if we knew the exact areas these were find, maybe the axe is the only evidence of the Bronze Age in one particular part of Tipperary or the hoard of 28 Medieval coins found in the one location would reveal much about that area's trading and economic life.

I worked on sites in Tipp all through the last decade and it really pains me to think that some of these might have been targeted by looters after we left in the evening.

robp

cfuserkildare wrote: »

There are 2 issues here that are vying for position here,

Yes the artifacts need to be held in context, however, if they are not found then we have no idea what our past was like.
If a society doesn't know about they're past, how can they have or maintain any sort of social context or identity?

We have a phenomenal amount of prehistoric metal in this country, copper, bronze and gold mostly. I am really not a specialist in the area but I am pretty sure only about 00.1% have been found by archaeologists. So many were found years and years ago by farmers, peat cutters etc. This man's activities have now reduced the chance of finding any in context in Tipperary. Archaeologists think in the long term. Even if those two bronze artefacts were not found by archaeologists until the year 2075 that is ok. About 2000 of those early axes have been found in Ireland already. We don't need more for museum exhibits but we do badly need context information.

cfuserkildare

robp wrote: »

We have a phenomenal amount of prehistoric metal in this country, copper, bronze and gold mostly. I am really not a specialist in the area but I am pretty sure only about 00.1% have been found by archaeologists. So many were found years and years ago by farmers, peat cutters etc. This man's activities have now reduced the chance of finding any in context in Tipperary. Archaeologists think in the long term. Even if those two bronze artefacts were not found by archaeologists until the year 2075 that is ok. About 2000 of those early axes have been found in Ireland already. We don't need more for museum exhibits but we do badly need context information.

From what I have been able to read here, it shows a general level of dishonesty attained by the average person on the street here.

When we just assume that bad things will happen, then they will happen.

robp

cfuserkildare wrote: »

From what I have been able to read here, it shows a general level of dishonesty attained by the average person on the street here.

When we just assume that bad things will happen, then they will happen.

Well there are a lot of people who would be honest about telling you they don't care what the archaeologists tell them. Secondly even if they were the perfect citizen and phoned the national museum the same day the stratigraphy of the site may now be mixed beyond repair and dating impossible despite their best intentions.

dr gonzo

cfuserkildare wrote: »

There are 2 issues here that are vying for position here,

Yes the artifacts need to be held in context, however, if they are not found then we have no idea what our past was like.
If a society doesn't know about they're past, how can they have or maintain any sort of social context or identity?

robp wrote: »

We have a phenomenal amount of prehistoric metal in this country, copper, bronze and gold mostly. I am really not a specialist in the area but I am pretty sure only about 00.1% have been found by archaeologists. So many were found years and years ago by farmers, peat cutters etc. This man's activities have now reduced the chance of finding any in context in Tipperary. Archaeologists think in the long term. Even if those two bronze artefacts were not found by archaeologists until the year 2075 that is ok. About 2000 of those early axes have been found in Ireland already. We don't need more for museum exhibits but we do badly need context information.

Exactly the point I was going to make robp. Its definitely important that we are finding stuff, otherwise archaeologist are out of a job, but if finding these artefacts properly means they wont be discovered for hundreds of years I'm completely fine with that. Better the information be put off then lost altogether.

I definitely worry about how short sighted people are in this country, including the archaeology community too. Take Pompeii and Herculaneum as an example. Huge portions of those sites remain deliberately unexcavated because they couldnt be maintained, but also so that future techniques could be brought to bear on them. Obviously we dont have equivalent sites here but I still wonder if we, as a nation, would have had the foresight to leave much of a incredible site like that alone. The shocking level of interference of the Boyne valley complex would lead me to say no.

dr gonzo

robp wrote: »

Well there are a lot of people who would be honest about telling you they don't care what the archaeologists tell them. Secondly even if they were the perfect citizen and phoned the national museum the same day the stratigraphy of the site may now be mixed beyond repair and dating impossible despite their best intentions.

What baffles me is this dichotomy between cultural pride and heritage destruction that exists here. To a certain extent you can understand ignorance with regard to MDing etc, but then there are the people that fully advocate the sale of heritage materials out of the country. These very same people would probably yammer away to an American tourist about Celts and Cuchulainn and Newgrange. They would probably also attack banks for their greed, and the government for their short-sightedness, both of which they hypocritically have in spades by talking about the illegal sale of our heritage. In fact I've even seen someone talking about sticking it to the government by metal detectoring and selling the finds, as if its the government who owns the objects and not the people, and only the government who cares about the long term protection.

Appalling behaviour.

slowburner

dr gonzo wrote: »

Take Pompeii and Herculaneum as an example. Huge.... Obviously we dont have equivalent sites here ...

You never know what lies under our bogs

Fighting Irish

slowburner wrote: »

To a certain extent, archaeology has its origins in the activities of C19th century gentlemen treasure hunters. Treasure hunting was a fashionable and sometimes profitable pursuit.
As time passed, interested people began to understand that simply collecting objects benefited nobody other than the collector.
Archaeology grew out of the need to understand the true story these finds could tell us.
The times of gentlemen treasure hunters are a relatively long way behind us now, thankfully, but there are still some people who just don't understand this.

Contemporary treasure hunters don't seem capable of understanding that the real treasure is the conservation, preservation and sound archaeological investigation of our past.

It should be pointed out that the rising popularity of treasure hunting shows on UK television, combined with the UK's different legislative approach, may be confusing some people. Others feel that if it is allowed in the UK, it should be allowed here.
Irish legislation on archaeology is never going to be amended in favour of treasure hunters.
That is something for which we should be both grateful and proud.

That treasure belongs to all of us. It is my past, my heritage, my treasure... and it is yours.
When someone fails to understand this and seeks out archaeological material for themselves - they are stealing from all of us.

While not everyone who owns a metal detector goes out to intentionally destroy our national heritage or find 'treasure', some do.
That is why we have strict controls on the use of these devices.
The 1970s saw an upsurge in this form of illicit activity by organised groups who stole, sold and exported many priceless artefacts.
That is why the legislation was introduced.

There has been a resurgence in this activity recently, and organised criminal elements have their eyes on our heritage again. The case of the raid on the Swords depot amply demonstrates this.
The heritage of this island is under a threat not seen since the 1970s.

The picture below shows a few examples of what metal detectorists are capable of. It was taken a few weeks ago at one of our most important national monuments.
The entire circumference of the site had been searched, dug and the sods replaced to hide the signs of their handiwork.

There are always going to be bad people in this world, the main fact is if MDing was legal, there would be so much more objects going to our museums

robp

Fighting Irish wrote: »

There are always going to be bad people in this world, the main fact is if MDing was legal, there would be so much more objects going to our museums

Out of context objects which will say far less then if they found in a proper excavation.

Why can't amateur history hunters do something safe and useful like geophys surveys. Now that would make them very popular with archaeologists!

slowburner

@Fighting Irish.
Posts advocating the use of metal detectors will not be tolerated on this forum.
Please read the Forum Charter.

Fighting Irish

slowburner wrote: »

@Fighting Irish.
Posts advocating the use of metal detectors will not be tolerated on this forum.
Please read the Forum Charter.

:pac: