Ancient Romanian grave sites discovered. Equipment recommendation. Help!!!

[LX Kid]

I have a new Romaian aquaintance, that escaped Communist Romania in 1954, that is asking me for assistance in finding proper detecting equipment for precious metal recovery. He indicates the graves are at least 1000 years old and on some sites bones were coming out of the ground. He's feels he has wasted money on White's and Garrett detectors that just aren't getting the job done. He didn't indicate what models he had purchased but they both had very large coils. He left them there with family, when he returned stateside last spring. His problem is that during WWI and WWII they is soo much old munitions, fragments and war refuse that he's not able to read thru it. He said he talked to Kellyco but were of no real help. He wants to discriminate past these problem materials and find any good precious metals that may be there. He want to go deep with "discrimination!" I told him this was a tall order but I would try and find out if there was any equipment that could do such a job. He will be visiting family again next summer and wants to try again with new equipment. Thanks (P.S. I'm not really up on wanting to dig graves cause to me it's kinda sacred.)

 

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[Da Sand Crab]

That is kind of dis-respectful if you ask me.

I don't care what kind of precious treasure they might be carrying, They should be left alone. Again, just my opinion.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Your friend needs to understand the basics of metal detectors and metal detecting. It sounds like the Whites and Garretts he was using (assuming he used them correctly) were doing what metal detectors are designed to do: Detect metal! If anyone thinks they can wander into a field full of WWII debri, or debri of any sort for that matter, and "see through all the undesirable metals, and only find the good stuff", they are dreaming.

Unfortunately this is a side consequence of the very word "discrimination", is that people think there are detectors that can just effortlessly seen through hubcaps, cans, building debri, etc... and "only find the good stuff" (as if the detector will just magically fail to beep on all else). And this is the image set by some White Commercials perhaps ("tells you what's in the ground before you dig" doh!).

The only thing "discrimination" does is tell you conductivity. Unfortunately, a lot of the TID/conductivity of junk can be the same as treasure. A hubcap might give the exact same signal as a toolbox buried with gold coins. A gold ring and a pulltab might have the same TID. A modern copper car key and an ancient silver coin might share the same TID, etc....

About the only hope he can have (aside from patiently weeding through the junk), is to use a 2-box type detector. This would only find items jar or toaster sized, and bigger. So assuming he's convinced that treasures there are necessarily large, he can pass up all items smaller. But of course, this means he'll miss individual coins, smaller valuables, figurines, jewelry, etc... It also assumes that no junk will be larger. But of course, all kinds of junk (esp. in a WWII debri field) could be large. So all in all, I'd say your friend, if he's in ancient countries like that, should concentrate his md'ing to areas that were outside the sphere of modern junk. Ie.: areas not affected by the heat of WWII battles, destruction, etc...

 

[Sandman]

Tom nailed it in much detail. With todays technology it can't be done no matter which brand you use.

Besides it is disrespectful to knowingly hunt grave sites like a ghoul and it gives us a bad rep to boot.

 

[LX Kid]

I agree with Sandman about being ghoulish and somewhat sac rilegist. But culturally, in that part of the world, it may not be as taboo as we in the West feel. Archaeologist do it all the time! But for me I feel leave them in peace with whatever they were buried with.

 

[TORRERO]

I agree with Sandman about being ghoulish and somewhat sac rilegist. But culturally, in that part of the world, it may not be as taboo as we in the West feel. Archaeologist do it all the time! But for me I feel leave them in peace with whatever they were buried with.

Archaeologists do this as a service to humanity to help us understand the historical past
and to keep any "treasure" found, in the public domain for all people to see and appreciate.
It is unconciable to consider digging up ancient "treasure" just to melt it down for its bullion value.
Your friend should also take strong consideration in the possibility of WW1 & WW2 unexploded
ordinance as the technology of the time would still keep any unexploded ordinance in an unstable
state. (like "hey I found something... swing with my shovel and BOOM)

 

[Tank69]

I would think that no matter what detector you used you would have to work it like any other place you get in an just have to work it , clean it out then you hit the good stuff.

 

[aditochi]

hello i`m from romania ,and i have to say that here to own a detector you need a permit from police,and you are not allowed to hunt in archaeological site.Even if you find it accidental you have to declare it in 2 days .and after they verify how you find the goods they will give you a reword 30% of the total value,but most of the time you wont get nothing.they will say that you have made archaeological digging and that is not allowed.my edvice to your friend is to stop what he is doing becouse could get into big trouble .

i have to add that diggind grave site is so immoral.those buried there are someone ancestor.if they are dug for a good purpose ,for we to understand about those times,how they lived,how they fought that is ok.but ask him these if someone with a metal detector came and dug his great great....grandfather, for his ring ...how would he feel??

 

[LX Kid]

Hello Aditochi. Thank you very much for your informative addition to this posting. I am in agreement with you on his efforts to dig in this manner for these items. I will print out these postings and give it to him and show what has been said by fellow TreasureNet members. Welcome to the TreasureNet Forum and hope that you will give more information on metal detecting, as a hobby, in your country. Are you a metal detecting enthusiast? If you are, what brand detector do you use? Thank you

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Aditochi, I had a friend who hunted in Romania, years ago, with a local long-time native Romanian hunter there. They never had any problems. The way it was explained to my friend, was that the rules you are talking about (that seem to maybe say "no detecting" or "no finding oldies" etc...) apply to public land and/or "scheduled" (declared, or whatever you want to call it) archaeological sites. They do not apply to private land. So my friend and his guide hunted farmer's fallow fields, with permission, to their hearts content

To the extent a police or bureaucrat might tell someone differently, I suppose it would be the same here in the USA if you put it that way. Ie.: if I walk in to city hall, in any city in the USA, and say "I found this diamond ring or gold coin in the park city property.... 'Can I keep it?' " I suppose you'd find some cops and bureaucrats to tell you "no". This psychology to such a question has resulted in a lot of people assuming that certain locales, and certain countries are "off-limits", because they receive an answer couched in national or state owned land, shipwreck salvor legal stuff, or raiding pyramaids, or exporting national gold treasures, or other such nonsense.

 

[aditochi]

this law that i am talking about it is set in at 4 august 2004.you do need a permit for detector ,you could hunt any kind of land ,public or privat but if you find anything major you have to declare it in 2 days.if you are cought with detector and you do not own permit it is confiscated.