Cemetary Digging Ethics

[al-nm]

yes i know you said only forgotten ones... but bad karma isnt something i need for digging in one. i am already old and ugly my own dog licks his butt before he will get near me. my bank cheats me on my banking account. i am stuck in a state no one wants. my wife wont leave me cause she doesnt want me happy. all i need now is to dig up a cemetery and have something haunt me. plus if one person digs in one then here come more and before you know it the place would look like the potholed school grounds you find in each town. people are put in there to rest in peace most hated modern things to begin with doubt now they would want to have the beep beep beep of a detector right before someone digs up the pretty cross someone put in the ground close to them. I am all for freedom to detect but even i have limits on places to do so. and know if i found out someone dug around or on any of my dead kins graves i would keep them tied up in court so long with lawsuits over tresspassing and destruction of private property which is private! each paid for by the family and belongs to said family. we all beg for more freedom in hunting places yet things like this is what turns the public against us. finding gold and silver and relics is a great thing but even those arent a reward if taken from spots i know i am not wanted in. things like this make cremation after death sound so much better to me. we already have kids destroying head stones. this is just my opinion on this subject, what each does is for them to live with not for me to tell what to do. just know i sleep better with a clear conscience knowing i did things in a manner meant to show metal detectorist arent just goofy greedy diggers who are out to destroy places.

 

[flyinguy]

not for me! the hand will come out of the hole and drag you to your death! ever watch the old horror movies?

 

[handy]

Bergie, This is a touchy subject that some folks on here sometime get kinda irate about. But before I begin, let me point out to you and all the other mis-spellers on here that CEMETERY does not have an "A" in it. Very easy to remember that. No "A's" in cemeteries.

When it comes to graveyards on TNET, there are two schools of thought. Yes. And. No. Just like when it comes to the Roman ruins, Stonehenge, Easter Island, and the old abandoned 100-year-old cemetery up the road from you.

I've differed with several on this forum over the years on this subject, but not for ghoulish reasons. I do not personally hunt cemeteries, because loved ones sometimes leave momentoes on top of graves. Silver or gold lockets, heart-shaped momentoes, coins with significant dates, etc.

I really don't think there is anything or anyone in a modern day cemetery I would wish to dig up. In my younger years, when I wanted to pursue a career in archaeology (and still may), I still wouldn't. These are not ancient remains we need to learn from. We know what they look like, when they died, of what (usually), and still have memories of these folks. Someone will dig them up some day, but hopefully not of our generation.

Do we MD in a cemetery or not? Your call...

archaeology (and still may), I still wouldn't. These are not ancient remains we need to learn from. still digging up the dead just giving what most people consider a reason to do it it is no differnt

 

[j.letson]

I personally would not have a problem making a corpse out of someone I caught digging over the grave of one of my relatives no matter how old the grave site is.

 

[Marauder Dan]

I personally would not have a problem making a corpse out of someone I caught digging over the grave of one of my relatives no matter how old the grave site is.

I agree 200 percent! its a major lack of respect and it makes my stomache sick!!

 

[Newfiehunter]

Im going to remain neutral on this subject. However, let me point out one thing. Why is it moral for archeologists to disturb the ancient tombs in Egypt, native burial grounds, etc to be displayed in museums , and if we even go near a cemetery, we are grave robbers? Think about it, if these ancient people knew their remains were on display in a museum for people to see, do you think they would appreciate it? Don't think so. Just my humble opinion.

 

[lucky1777]

I hunt them with permission and not over graves. I also could care less what a lot of you think.

 

[Blythe_Spirit_50]

I can't see purposely digging over a grave but there are probably a lot more of them than we realize, abandoned. I can't see that scratching around a few inches in a long lost cemetery out in the woods would bother anybody, especially the dead person cause well......he's dead. I have seen where groundhogs have done more damage than that. Anyway, aren't most bodies at least 4 feet down. Does anybody dig that deep on a regular basis? And no, I have never done it myself but I have always wondered what it would be like to dig someone up from like 150 years ago.

 

[Marauder Dan]

Im going to remain neutral on this subject. However, let me point out one thing. Why is it moral for archeologists to disturb the ancient tombs in Egypt, native burial grounds, etc to be displayed in museums , and if we even go near a cemetery, we are grave robbers? Think about it, if these ancient people knew their remains were on display in a museum for people to see, do you think they would appreciate it? Don't think so. Just my humble opinion.
[/quote/....well there is a thing called CURSES that those people that open those tombs get!!

 

[Blythe_Spirit_50]

If people who disturbed graves were cursed, there wouldn't be any archaeologists.

 

[husker du]

noodle- with all due respect, if you're going to correct the spelling of others, it is imperative that your own spelling is correct: "memento" not "momento" HH

 

[Highmountain]

So, this should get some interesting feedback. When I first started detecting I would never dig near a cemetary. Then as I started detecting here on the east coast I would find VERY OLD (1700s/1800s) cemetaries long forgotten out in the woods. This presented a dilemma as in many cases it was hard to tell where the cemetary starts because stones had been removed or fallen/covered over time. To be completely honest, it also started becoming a question of whether my personal ethics could hold up against the "draw" of knowing there could be incredible finds at such a site. I altered my approach slightly to dig only where I knew there was not a grave marking, but not around the ones that were marked. I also found that I was appreciating the lives of the long forgotten people and places that were hidden out in these woods. In cases where I could lift the stones, place them upright, and bring some dignity back, I would do so. I often read them, and in fact last weekend found a man who died on his own birthday (Sept 9), at the age of 27. So, perhaps I am rationalizing my viewpoint to allow myself to dig anywhere near a cemetary, but in the cases of these long forgotten places out in the woods (not active cemetaries visited by the public), I have come to the conclusion that it's a fair way to proceed. Thoughts?

I have a fondness for old cemetaries, like to wander around in them, but I've never detected in one that was clearly a cemetary. I don't think I'd care to see someone else doing it, though I'm not entirely set in my thinking about it.

However, having said that, I've detected massacre sites where the remains were scattered over a large area before someone came along to gather up as much as they could find and bury them, usually in mass graves. I'm not certain that's a lot different except for some hair-splitting rationalizations, but I feel enough better about it to allow me to do it.

I've also been at a countless number of ruin sites that included burials, or middens where bodies of slaves were discarded, or where the victims had been cannibalized and the bones thrown in the middens. On a number of others the ruin was part of the civil war among the southwesterners circa 1150, where the dwellings were burned down around the remains of the already dead people inside, where the charred remains of corn with the kernals still on were there alongside human remains.

A lot of those places erosion has cut through the ruins, deep arroyos running through them, bones protruding from the arroyo walls and eventually falling to the bottom where they're washed away come the next rain. A person also finds tools and pottery in such places.

In a sense these are 'cemetaries' because they contain the remains of dead human beings, so I think it probably qualifies within the boundaries of your question/thread.

From my perspective there's no pat answer concerning the ethics, except to say I leave human remains alone generally, except in a couple of cases, one of which I gave a burial to the teeth of a white miner I found in a place I was working.

Tough call when there's hair-splitting involved, easy call where there are tombstones.

Jack

 

[Highmountain]

This type of behavior reflects badly on our hobby:

67 Bodies Secretly Exhumed From NM Grave

Apr 9, 6:29 AM (ET)

By MELANIE DABOVICH

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Working in secret, federal archaeologists have dug up the remains of dozens of soldiers and children near a Civil War-era fort after an informant tipped them off about widespread grave-looting.

The exhumations, conducted from August to October, removed 67 skeletons from the parched desert soil around Fort Craig - 39 men, two women and 26 infants and children, according to two federal archaeologists who helped with the dig.

They also found scores of empty graves and determined 20 had been looted.

The government kept its exhumation of the unmarked cemetery near the historic New Mexico fort out of the public's eye for months to prevent more thefts.

The investigation began with a tip about an amateur historian who had displayed the mummified remains of a black soldier, draped in a Civil War-era uniform, in his house.

Investigators say the historian, Dee Brecheisen, may have been a prolific looter who spotted historical sites from his plane. Brecheisen died in 2004 and although it was not clear whether the looting continued after his death, authorities exhumed the unprotected site to prevent future thefts.


The rest of the article is here: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080409/D8VU9MJ00.html

I knew Dee a good many years, hunted with him some and occasionally traded artifacts and exchanged book loans from one-anothers libraries. I never knew until after he died he was looting graves and keeping mummies and whatnot, and it gave me a great surprise when I learned of it. Dee was a man most people would like and feel an affinity with immediately upon meeting him. I still have a few things around I swapped with him for. He was a big help to me in some of the researching I did for the Lost Adams book on a few issues, and he'd hunted the Texan Santa Fe Expedition surrender site Laguna Colorado near Montoya enough to have found a lot of good artifacts there.

Interestingly, in any conversation with Dee about digging gravesites he always expressed outrage and venom equal to those posting here about the matter. Had no use for anyone who'd do such a thing, nothing but scorn and contempt.

Sometimes, methinks, people protest too much.

Jack

 

[Highmountain]

One thing for sure...

Some may say they don't care, and some may say they are being "archaeologists", and some others may claim that they aren't hurting anything or anybody by digging in cemetaries, but all that would go completely by the wayside when that person who has no authority to dig there wakes up after getting a big knuckle sandwich, after disturbing or digging around MY ancestor's gravesites. And it only takes me one punch to knock out a 300 pound man. Been there, done that.

You all have a very pleasant day.

EasyMoney

Even though he wasn't implying any ethical issues EasyMoney makes a good point worth considering and it doesn't involve ethics.

those who do detect in graveyards, but 'not over graves' might want to be clear about the meaning of 'not over graves'.

The link below is the Madrid, New Mexico 'ghost town' cemetery. As you can see, parts of it go back to the late 1800s, parts a lot more recent. On the more recent end there are no boundary markers around the site, no real distinction even between the graves or cremation-ashes areas.

But I suspect the bikers living down in Madrid these days would see the matter exactly as EasyMoney sees it if they saw someone swinging a metal detector anywhere near there.

Madrid Ghost Town - graveyard

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,160827.msg1171452.html#new
http://snipurl.com/2cfhj [forum_treasurenet_com]

Jack

 

[liftloop]

I would not detect a cemetery. this is what my older brother told me. I't not how you die it's where go that counts.

 

[baspinall]

I hunt them with permission and not over graves. I also could care less what a lot of you think.

So what? You do care what some of us think?

 

[lucky1777]

I hunt them with permission and not over graves. I also could care less what a lot of you think.

So what? You do care what some of us think?

No I don't care what the hypocrites on here have to say. Ask all these no cemetery hunting folks if they would like to hunt Gettysburg. How about diving for treasure in a sunken ship. How about a plane crash. See all these places are sacred and some are the final resting places of our ancestors. Just because someone places a marble stone with a name doesn't make it any different than these other sites. Like I said don't hunt over graves, an always get permission. And just a side note, I could give a rats a$$ what you think. I hope that answered your question.

 

[Highmountain]

I hunt them with permission and not over graves. I also could care less what a lot of you think.

So what? You do care what some of us think?

No I don't care what the hypocrites on here have to say. Ask all these no cemetery hunting folks if they would like to hunt Gettysburg. How about diving for treasure in a sunken ship. How about a plane crash. See all these places are sacred and some are the final resting places of our ancestors. Just because someone places a marble stone with a name doesn't make it any different than these other sites. Like I said don't hunt over graves, an always get permission. And just a side note, I could give a rats a$$ what you think. I hope that answered your question.

Good answer.

Jack

 

[flyinguy]

One thing for sure...

Some may say they don't care, and some may say they are being "archaeologists", and some others may claim that they aren't hurting anything or anybody by digging in cemetaries, but all that would go completely by the wayside when that person who has no authority to dig there wakes up after getting a big knuckle sandwich, after disturbing or digging around MY ancestor's gravesites. And it only takes me one punch to knock out a 300 pound man. Been there, done that.

You all have a very pleasant day.

EasyMoney

right on, EASY! , Bill

 

[Highmountain]

I remember a time many years ago when a very famous football player named Joe Namath (sp?) decided to put on a pair of mesh pantyhose and showed up on tv with them. He was supposed to be very "masculine", yet he decided that it was ok to be a "GirlyMan" if the price was right, I guess.

EasyMoney: Old Joe just didn't give a rat what you, what anyone thought about it. Same as lucky1777 doesn't. Joe didn't have to worry about you punching him out. Neither does lucky 1777. Neither would old Lee, the guy I posted about earlier.

People who dig graveyards where it's illegal to dig them know the risks they're taking of the whole catalog of things that can happen as a consequence happening. Somewhere inside your posturing about how macho you are you made a couple of good points that a person who digs graveyards ought to be thinking about. I'm going to take the liberty of fishing it out of all the other rhetoric to repeat them because I think they're valid, and I don't care about seeing people dig graveyards either.

Unless a person's actually digging graves down to the coffin he's not likely to find anything worth the trouble. And digging down to the bones is just lousy form.

It's not something you'll ever be able to feel proud of owning. It's not something you'll be able to brag about. It's almost certainly not going to be something you get enough money for to justify the risk of going to jail. And if anyone knows you did it they'll think less of the entire metal detecting and treasure hunting community. You might get your name in the papers, same as happened to Lee, but it might happen while you're alive and you'll be tainted as a grave robber for the rest of your years.

Just swinging a metal detector in a grave yard is going to leave the impression to anyone who sees you doing it that you'd dig where you pick up a signal. Nobody but you can decide where it's worthwhile to dig, but sifted out of all the chest pounding, EasyMoney's got some points you owe it to yourself to consider. Not because you're worried someone like EasyMoney will come along and punch you out, though if you're stupid enough it might happen, or you might get forced to put the hole in his breastbone while you're commiting a felony.

If the stakes don't look high to you it means you aren't looking carefully enough.

Just my opinion
Jack