Something pretty close to it. Any find that contains more than 10% gold or silver (the 10% is to cover, for example, mixed hoards of copper and silver coins) must be reported to the coroner (who in England, is more like a magistrate, not just an examiner of stiffs, as in the US). He then convenes a coroner's jury who decides whether the find constitutes a "treasure trove", which is a phrase meaning that the item or items were buried with the intention of recovery, and were not casual or accidental losses. Anything ruled to be treasure trove is automatically property of the crown, although the finder is normally granted a finders fee that is generally worth nearly as much as the item itself. Single coins or clusters of coins consisting of, say, 5 or fewer coins are not generally ruled to be treasure trove. As I understand it, valuable objects which are of archaeological value are generally ruled 'treasure trove' to give the museums first crack at it, whether they consitute casual losses or not. Like America, England has what it calls "scheduled" sites, presumably scheduled for excavation, that are off-limits for detecting, but these generally consitute something like iron-age forts or Roman bath complexes, not the mere campsites or privy pits that archaeologists in the US would like to nationalize.

In general, official attitudes are somewhat more relaxed in Europe; perhaps it has to do with the relative abundance of material. I would point out to you Civil War collectors, for example, that no part of the entire Waterloo battlesite here in Belgium is in any way protected - if you don't count the gamekeeper at Le Hay Saint who will run detectorists off during the pheasant season.

Comments:

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Posted By: cisco-cache-3.kuleuven.ac.be - 134.58.253.115 - July 20, 2001 at 01:17:33