PBK said:
Iron Patch said:
Anyone who puts in an honest effort and finds a relic on a site they have permission has every right to do with it what they want.
Well said!
I agree with those who point out that there is a certain responsibility that comes with the recovery of any important relic. However, I see no reason why good stewardship of a find should be confined only to keeping it or giving it away to some "deserving" person or institution. As Iron Patch says, more often than not it's a matter of effort rather than luck. Success is hard bought, both in terms of actual monetary investment and in skill, experience, and sweat equity. Those who have paid the price deserve to paid in return. No one else is entitled to claim or seize what you have worked long and hard to find— not archaeologists, not curators, not bureaucrats, not grasping "friends" or relatives... no one.
I might also add that selling a relic to an advanced collector very often assures its proper preservation and appreciation far more than handing it over to, say, a museum or university. Indeed, most of the definitive works on relics have been written by collectors and independent, avocational scholars. We know what we are doing, and we do it well. On the other hand, some of the greatest crimes against surviving fragments of the past have been committed by professionals with more degrees than a thermometer, and not a whit of practical ability or firsthand experience.
Hunting relics for money is a bad idea on a lot of levels— but receiving money for relics honestly and painstakingly obtained is a right which no one should surrender or deny.
I agree with PBK, however what he is describing is not necesarily what we are discussing here. We are discussing mining relics for money.
As I see it, the differences between a true relic hunter and someone out to make a buck are as crystaline as the differences between an archeologist and a "pot hunter". One studies and documents the whole picture in context. The other picks and chooses what may sell, while leaving the historic context in shambles.
Once we value a relic in the same limited context as we would a stamp or coin we've diminished it. We've turned a tapestry into a single thread where the "red ones are worth more than the black or blue ones." It's true, some relics are valuable and we have a right to sell them at some point. When our objective though is to sell them above all else, we lose perspective. It is inevitable that we would lose perspective, and in so doing lose the tapestry.
It's almost pointless to spend the time to illustrate this, as we all know already. I've seen it over and over in Bolivia myself on the Inca ruins. We've seen it in the midwest on the indian mounds, in Utah, in Egypt, Italy, Turkey, on our battlefields, on countless sites where the valuable relics are mined and sold, with little if any record of provenance. Sure, it took research to find and exploit these historic sites, but that is little excuse for anything that happens afterwards.
If there's any responsible message we should be sending, it is to walk softly, to remember that we are more than detectorists; As PBK said so well , we are stewards of our history, and as it is in the U.K., we share some responsibility for what we find and how we document it. When our prime objective is money, that simply will not happen.
