Allan, the 1st link you give has nothing about detecting in it. The 2nd one is the one we're discussing (which as you can see, deals only with antiquities, but doesn't forbid new stuff).
Thanx for finding the 3rd link! I've read through it. It alludes to: "
Foreign Office" as an entity who made the quote about metal detectors being "against the law".
I wonder who this entity is that's being called the "foreign office" of Turkey. Ie.: did someone write to an emabassy? A travel consolate there? etc... To merely say "it's against the law", still simply begs the question: "where is that law? Can someone go to it, and read the actual prohibition, how it's defined, and spelled out?" If you or they merely answer that by pointing to your
2nd link, then again, this doesn't seem to outlaw the actual act of metal detecting.
There was a true story back in the early 1980s, that Fisher Co. ....... in an attempt to answer a reader question in their periodical, wrote to some authority figure in Mexico (a border consolate? a lawyer? the embassy? who knows.....) and asked: "is detecting legal in mexico?" The answer came back "no". So Fisher published this answer to the reader in their periodical. The very next issue had many other readers who took issue with this answer. Saying things like "since when? and "who told you this?" and "detectors are a common site there" and so forth. Fisher, in defense of their answer, told the readers that when the earlier inquiry had come, they merely asked! Doh. And who better to ask, than Mexico themselves? Doh
But you see, answers like they got are probably just couched in terms of federal antiquites, raiding the pyramaids, exporting gold bars, blah blah blah. What is odd, is that Fisher even has dealers in Mexico, doh!
So you see, you can always find a "no", if you ask enough people, depending on how the the different hearers interpret your question.
