- Joined
- Jan 27, 2009
- Messages
- 19,212
- Reaction score
- 12,627
- Golden Thread
- 1
- Location
- South East Tennessee on Ga, Ala line
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Tesoro Conquistador freq shift
Fisher F75
Garrett AT-Pro
Garet carrot
Neodymium magnets
5' Probe
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Here are some easily googled examples of large Archeology collections that are kept in basements due to the pure volume of items. Years of study yet to be conducted on boxed up items. Seems most institutions use basements sometimes with disastrous results.Sometimes amazing discoverys are made as well from forgotten collections with poor record keeping. Here are 6 examples of discoverys and destroyed collections. Way to many to post.Sorry some links were bad on the pdf si I copied and pasted to much info maybe,,sorry
1. Major archaeological discovery in Egypt. . .in museum basement ...
Jul 26, 2009 ... Major archaeological discovery in Egypt. . .in museum basement ... but this is not unusual for museums with vast collections. ...
www.gadling.com/.../major-archaeological-discovery-in-egypt-in-museum-basement/ -
2. [PDF]
The roots of the current crisis in
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View
require that archeological collections be stored in abandoned pole barns or the basement of con- demned buildings because “they are only old ...
crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/23-05/23-05-2.pdf -
4 CRMNo 5—2000
T
he roots of the current crisis in
archeological collection manage-
ment go back to the beginning
of the 20th century when much
energy was directed toward the passage of antiq-
uities legislation to protect sites on federal land.
On September 3, 1904, Edgar Lee Hewett sub-
mitted to Land Commissioner William A.
Richards his celebrated Memorandum
Concerning the Historic and Prehistoric Ruins of
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, and
their Preservation, thereby launching the final
campaign that resulted in the passage of the
Antiquities Act of 1906. In it Hewett insisted
that the collections removed from ruins “by com-
petent authorities” should be “properly cared for”
and that “all data that can be secured” should be
“made a matter of permanent record.”
Although Hewett was a man with expansive
and ambitious ideas, never in his wildest dreams
could he have imagined how these policies would
affect his successors at the end of the 20th cen-
tury. Through that century citizens and politi-
cians, archeologists and lawmakers, preservation-
ists and administrators labored to create the
extensive body of law and regulation that gives
this country a highly effective program of archeo-
logical preservation. Archeologists, following
Hewett’s pioneering statement, consider every
site to be a unique repository of information
about the past that “can contribute something to
the advancement of knowledge.” They have
striven to recover and preserve that knowledge for
the benefit of present and future generations. The
result of this century of collecting activity is that
archeological collection managers today are over-
whelmed by a veritable flood of objects and docu-
mentation. They face a crisis of major proportions.
In Hewett’s day, the amount of material
recovered consisted mostly of whole pots and
artifacts. Large eastern museums openly and vig-
orously competed for the privilege of acquiring,
curating, and exhibiting archeological collections
from federal lands in the Southwest. By mid-cen-
tury, most museums were willingly accepting and
caring for the small collections of archeological
material that came from federal land. Often no
more than a few cardboard boxes (frequently beer
cases) of artifacts were involved. Within the next
two decades, however, the flow of collections
from projects mandated by federal, state, and
local law had reached alarming proportions. In
the last two decades of the century, the quantity
of archeological material, both objects and associ-
ated documentation, has increased exponentially.
Some institutions have had to cease providing
repository services altogether.
The experience of the Arizona State
Museum at the University of Arizona is typical.
In 1969-1970 it curated almost 950 standardized
archive boxes (about three cubic feet each, almost
the same size as those beer cases) of archeological
material from federal projects and almost twice as
many by 1979-1980. A decade later in 1989-
1990, the Museum had 8,624 boxes, more than
four times as many as in 1979-1980. The volume
doubled again in 1999-2000. The Arizona State
Museum has essentially filled up the six floors of
library stacks it occupied in 1977, and has no
room left for the more than 20,000 additional
boxes it has already contracted to accept over the
next couple of years. Institutions and agencies
throughout the country are experiencing similar
growth pains as a result of the pace of archeologi-
cal activity carried out under national policy
directives.
In an effort to meet these challenges,
museum specialists have become more profes-
sional in the way they care for archeological col-
lections. The promulgation by the National Park
Service of Rules for the Curation of Federally
Owned and Administered Archeological
Collections (36 CFR pt. 79) is an important
example of this increased sophistication in collec-
tion management. No longer can administrators
require that archeological collections be stored in
abandoned pole barns or the basement of con-
demned buildings because “they are only old
rocks.” We have developed better systems of doc-
umentation and have automated our databases,
Raymond H. Thompson
The Crisis in Archeological
Collection Management
CRMNo 5—2000 5
thereby creating greater access to the informa-
tion. We can now reach out and serve the public
in new and exciting ways, but we are not taking
full advantage of these opportunities. As a result
we are unable to provide convincing data when
the administrators and the politicians, who con-
trol the funding, request information on the use,
that is the public benefit, of the collections we
hold. We face another crisis of credibility unless
we can develop and make use of more innovative
and effective ways of reaching out to the many
curious members of the public who want to
enjoy and appreciate the knowledge that we so
earnestly save for the “benefit of present and
future generations.”
Despite the progress that has been made,
we have not addressed adequately our biggest
problem, the exponential growth of the archeo-
logical collections. The standard response to this
problem, of course, has been another request for
more funding, more staff, more space. Because
most of the archeological collections result from
various kinds of federal undertakings, we tend to
look to the federal government for these
resources. We ask for direct grants, discuss the
need for state-based federal repositories, and even
consider the transfer of collections to other fed-
eral agencies or Indian tribes. At the same time,
we refuse even to think about reducing the quan-
tity of material that we save, despite the fact that
it is the most rational way of dealing with the
flood. Instead, we exacerbate the problem by
continuing to save the evidence of the past
blindly and indiscriminately. Although there are
powerful legal mandates for archeological work,
our political system responds to all mandates by a
continual process of resource allocation that
requires setting priorities and making choices.
Now that we have both the legal mandates and a
foothold in the budgetary process, we must begin
to set the priorities and make the choices that will
discriminate between what must be saved and
what should be discarded.
Although archeologists have finally begun
to recognize that some sites are more important
than others and to adjust their research accord-
ingly, national policy continues to insist that all
of the material recovered from such sites must be
saved. If we can recognize that there is a scale of
significance for archeological sites, we should be
able to see that there is a comparable scale of rela-
tive importance for the objects recovered.
Because we are in the business of saving the evi-
dence of the past, it is difficult for us to accept
this idea and even more difficult to implement it.
But it is our special responsibility to do so,
because we alone control the knowledge and the
criteria of judgment that are required. If we are
unable to make the choices that will help reduce
the flow of collections into our curatorial facili-
ties, others within the legal and political system
who are less qualified will do so. We must act,
because we are unable to keep forever under con-
trolled curatorial conditions all of the archeologi-
cal collections we now hold, to say nothing of the
huge surge of material to come from ongoing and
future federal undertakings.
While the burden created by this crisis falls
primarily on the shoulders of the collection man-
agers, the responsibility for coping with it must
be shared by the archeologists. Traditionally,
archeologists have been content to deposit the
materials they recover (sometimes without ade-
quate documentation) with museum caretakers
and then forget about them. Although archeolo-
gists insist that such collections be saved for
future research, few of them ever return to
restudy the material. Some investigators even
claim that these older collections lack research
value because the original collectors did not ask
the right questions in their research design.
Archeologists and curators must now work
together to develop the criteria for making the
decisions necessary for selecting adequately docu-
mented representative samples that merit long-
term care. Tough decisions will have to be made
and there will be some mistakes along the way.
But in the process it will be possible to forge a
national policy that will help discriminate what
should be saved from what should not.
Significant progress has already been made.
Although federal policy assigns equal significance
to all archeological sites, archeologists routinely
make decisions that identify some sites as more
important than others, even though they may not
admit in their reports that they have done so. Ten
years ago, the National Park Service published a
proposed Rule for Deaccessioning Bulk
Archeological Material in Federal Collections.
Last year the Department of Defense issued Draft
Guidelines for the Field Collection of
Archeological Materials and Standard Operating
Procedures for Curating Department of Defense
Archeological Collections.
These efforts address directly the two col-
lection management problems that lie at the core
of the present crisis. We need two coordinated
sets of policy and procedure in order to meet this
T
hus begins the Proclamation
establishing Utah’s new Grand
Staircase Escalante National
Monument which, the
Proclamation attests, was created principally for
its value for scientific study. In truth, the
Proclamation’s language might apply to the
majority of Utah’s vast public lands. This is a
region of North America that is a major center of
diversity for all fields of natural history and, con-
sequently, has witnessed a century of scientific
research.
The Utah Museum of Natural History
(UMNH, the Museum) is Utah’s state museum
of natural history. By legislative mandate it is
located at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
City, Utah’s capital city. The Museum is charged
with collecting and displaying for educational
and cultural purposes, “tangible objects reflecting
the past, present and continuing development of
our [Utah’s] natural history.” We also are directed
to provide traveling exhibits and outreach pro-
grams about archeology and paleontology to peo-
ple throughout the state, and to oversee and assist
in the proper care of archeological and paleonto-
logical collections recovered from state lands and
housed in facilities in Utah.2With its partner
institution, the Hansen Planetarium, the UMNH
hosted 258,874 on-site visitors and delivered
exhibits and educational programs to another
93,624 people throughout Utah in 1999.
The important regional collections housed
at the Museum are of high scientific value. They
are central to the Museum’s mission, and its man-
date as the state museum of natural history. And,
overwhelmingly, because of the high federal own-
ership of Utah lands, the Museum’s collections
are federal collections.
Ann Hanniball
Non-Federal Museums Managing
Federal Collections
The Utah Museum of Natural History
6 CRMNo 5—2000
crisis: one to guide the deaccessioning of undocu-
mented and redundant portions of the federal
collections already under our control, and
another for selecting documented representative
samples from the mass of material to come. New
resources will undoubtedly be needed to accom-
plish these two related goals. If we move expedi-
tiously, we will be in a position to justify requests
for such resources because we will have in place a
rational and implementable method for prioritiz-
ing their expenditure.
The archeological community has gained
great credibility within the preservation world by
insisting, as did Hewett in 1904-1905, that we
do not need to save physically all of the sites, but
rather the critical information about the past that
they contain. Now is the time to build on that
credibility and demonstrate that we can discrimi-
nate between critical and non-critical informa-
tion. Archeologists, museum curators, Indian
tribes, and agency officials must join forces to
work on this next phase of the nation’s constantly
evolving historic preservation policy. We must
find ways of selecting from the great mass of
archeological material that part of the evidence of
the past that we should save for those present and
future generations.
_______________
3. Flooded Artifacts Will be Back by '07 [Jamestown artifacts lost ...
Oct 20, 2003 ... More than 900000 archaeological finds from the basement have been trucked to Fort ... The collection, or at least the vast majority of it, ...
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1004575/posts -
4. News From Indian Country - Officials break ground for archaeology ...
Artifacts arrow Officials break ground for archaeology center ... hospital in the city until 2004, when the basement flooded, damaging thousands of them. ...
indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com...id
5. The ethics of collecting cultural property: whose culture? whose ... - Google Books Result
by Phyllis Mauch Messenger - 1999 - Art - 301 pages
Archaeologists are not always without blame. Archaeology, as with many sciences ... awaiting study for publication, were stored in a basement which flooded, .
books.google.com/books?isbn=0826321259...
6. cdli - im history
In 1881, Osman Hamdi Bey, the first director of the Archaeological Museum of ... Hundreds of these objects were damaged when the basement was flooded. ...
cdli.ucla.edu/collections/im/im_history_en.html
Take care of your collections
1. Major archaeological discovery in Egypt. . .in museum basement ...
Jul 26, 2009 ... Major archaeological discovery in Egypt. . .in museum basement ... but this is not unusual for museums with vast collections. ...
www.gadling.com/.../major-archaeological-discovery-in-egypt-in-museum-basement/ -
2. [PDF]
The roots of the current crisis in
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View
require that archeological collections be stored in abandoned pole barns or the basement of con- demned buildings because “they are only old ...
crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/23-05/23-05-2.pdf -
4 CRMNo 5—2000
T
he roots of the current crisis in
archeological collection manage-
ment go back to the beginning
of the 20th century when much
energy was directed toward the passage of antiq-
uities legislation to protect sites on federal land.
On September 3, 1904, Edgar Lee Hewett sub-
mitted to Land Commissioner William A.
Richards his celebrated Memorandum
Concerning the Historic and Prehistoric Ruins of
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, and
their Preservation, thereby launching the final
campaign that resulted in the passage of the
Antiquities Act of 1906. In it Hewett insisted
that the collections removed from ruins “by com-
petent authorities” should be “properly cared for”
and that “all data that can be secured” should be
“made a matter of permanent record.”
Although Hewett was a man with expansive
and ambitious ideas, never in his wildest dreams
could he have imagined how these policies would
affect his successors at the end of the 20th cen-
tury. Through that century citizens and politi-
cians, archeologists and lawmakers, preservation-
ists and administrators labored to create the
extensive body of law and regulation that gives
this country a highly effective program of archeo-
logical preservation. Archeologists, following
Hewett’s pioneering statement, consider every
site to be a unique repository of information
about the past that “can contribute something to
the advancement of knowledge.” They have
striven to recover and preserve that knowledge for
the benefit of present and future generations. The
result of this century of collecting activity is that
archeological collection managers today are over-
whelmed by a veritable flood of objects and docu-
mentation. They face a crisis of major proportions.
In Hewett’s day, the amount of material
recovered consisted mostly of whole pots and
artifacts. Large eastern museums openly and vig-
orously competed for the privilege of acquiring,
curating, and exhibiting archeological collections
from federal lands in the Southwest. By mid-cen-
tury, most museums were willingly accepting and
caring for the small collections of archeological
material that came from federal land. Often no
more than a few cardboard boxes (frequently beer
cases) of artifacts were involved. Within the next
two decades, however, the flow of collections
from projects mandated by federal, state, and
local law had reached alarming proportions. In
the last two decades of the century, the quantity
of archeological material, both objects and associ-
ated documentation, has increased exponentially.
Some institutions have had to cease providing
repository services altogether.
The experience of the Arizona State
Museum at the University of Arizona is typical.
In 1969-1970 it curated almost 950 standardized
archive boxes (about three cubic feet each, almost
the same size as those beer cases) of archeological
material from federal projects and almost twice as
many by 1979-1980. A decade later in 1989-
1990, the Museum had 8,624 boxes, more than
four times as many as in 1979-1980. The volume
doubled again in 1999-2000. The Arizona State
Museum has essentially filled up the six floors of
library stacks it occupied in 1977, and has no
room left for the more than 20,000 additional
boxes it has already contracted to accept over the
next couple of years. Institutions and agencies
throughout the country are experiencing similar
growth pains as a result of the pace of archeologi-
cal activity carried out under national policy
directives.
In an effort to meet these challenges,
museum specialists have become more profes-
sional in the way they care for archeological col-
lections. The promulgation by the National Park
Service of Rules for the Curation of Federally
Owned and Administered Archeological
Collections (36 CFR pt. 79) is an important
example of this increased sophistication in collec-
tion management. No longer can administrators
require that archeological collections be stored in
abandoned pole barns or the basement of con-
demned buildings because “they are only old
rocks.” We have developed better systems of doc-
umentation and have automated our databases,
Raymond H. Thompson
The Crisis in Archeological
Collection Management
CRMNo 5—2000 5
thereby creating greater access to the informa-
tion. We can now reach out and serve the public
in new and exciting ways, but we are not taking
full advantage of these opportunities. As a result
we are unable to provide convincing data when
the administrators and the politicians, who con-
trol the funding, request information on the use,
that is the public benefit, of the collections we
hold. We face another crisis of credibility unless
we can develop and make use of more innovative
and effective ways of reaching out to the many
curious members of the public who want to
enjoy and appreciate the knowledge that we so
earnestly save for the “benefit of present and
future generations.”
Despite the progress that has been made,
we have not addressed adequately our biggest
problem, the exponential growth of the archeo-
logical collections. The standard response to this
problem, of course, has been another request for
more funding, more staff, more space. Because
most of the archeological collections result from
various kinds of federal undertakings, we tend to
look to the federal government for these
resources. We ask for direct grants, discuss the
need for state-based federal repositories, and even
consider the transfer of collections to other fed-
eral agencies or Indian tribes. At the same time,
we refuse even to think about reducing the quan-
tity of material that we save, despite the fact that
it is the most rational way of dealing with the
flood. Instead, we exacerbate the problem by
continuing to save the evidence of the past
blindly and indiscriminately. Although there are
powerful legal mandates for archeological work,
our political system responds to all mandates by a
continual process of resource allocation that
requires setting priorities and making choices.
Now that we have both the legal mandates and a
foothold in the budgetary process, we must begin
to set the priorities and make the choices that will
discriminate between what must be saved and
what should be discarded.
Although archeologists have finally begun
to recognize that some sites are more important
than others and to adjust their research accord-
ingly, national policy continues to insist that all
of the material recovered from such sites must be
saved. If we can recognize that there is a scale of
significance for archeological sites, we should be
able to see that there is a comparable scale of rela-
tive importance for the objects recovered.
Because we are in the business of saving the evi-
dence of the past, it is difficult for us to accept
this idea and even more difficult to implement it.
But it is our special responsibility to do so,
because we alone control the knowledge and the
criteria of judgment that are required. If we are
unable to make the choices that will help reduce
the flow of collections into our curatorial facili-
ties, others within the legal and political system
who are less qualified will do so. We must act,
because we are unable to keep forever under con-
trolled curatorial conditions all of the archeologi-
cal collections we now hold, to say nothing of the
huge surge of material to come from ongoing and
future federal undertakings.
While the burden created by this crisis falls
primarily on the shoulders of the collection man-
agers, the responsibility for coping with it must
be shared by the archeologists. Traditionally,
archeologists have been content to deposit the
materials they recover (sometimes without ade-
quate documentation) with museum caretakers
and then forget about them. Although archeolo-
gists insist that such collections be saved for
future research, few of them ever return to
restudy the material. Some investigators even
claim that these older collections lack research
value because the original collectors did not ask
the right questions in their research design.
Archeologists and curators must now work
together to develop the criteria for making the
decisions necessary for selecting adequately docu-
mented representative samples that merit long-
term care. Tough decisions will have to be made
and there will be some mistakes along the way.
But in the process it will be possible to forge a
national policy that will help discriminate what
should be saved from what should not.
Significant progress has already been made.
Although federal policy assigns equal significance
to all archeological sites, archeologists routinely
make decisions that identify some sites as more
important than others, even though they may not
admit in their reports that they have done so. Ten
years ago, the National Park Service published a
proposed Rule for Deaccessioning Bulk
Archeological Material in Federal Collections.
Last year the Department of Defense issued Draft
Guidelines for the Field Collection of
Archeological Materials and Standard Operating
Procedures for Curating Department of Defense
Archeological Collections.
These efforts address directly the two col-
lection management problems that lie at the core
of the present crisis. We need two coordinated
sets of policy and procedure in order to meet this
T
hus begins the Proclamation
establishing Utah’s new Grand
Staircase Escalante National
Monument which, the
Proclamation attests, was created principally for
its value for scientific study. In truth, the
Proclamation’s language might apply to the
majority of Utah’s vast public lands. This is a
region of North America that is a major center of
diversity for all fields of natural history and, con-
sequently, has witnessed a century of scientific
research.
The Utah Museum of Natural History
(UMNH, the Museum) is Utah’s state museum
of natural history. By legislative mandate it is
located at the University of Utah in Salt Lake
City, Utah’s capital city. The Museum is charged
with collecting and displaying for educational
and cultural purposes, “tangible objects reflecting
the past, present and continuing development of
our [Utah’s] natural history.” We also are directed
to provide traveling exhibits and outreach pro-
grams about archeology and paleontology to peo-
ple throughout the state, and to oversee and assist
in the proper care of archeological and paleonto-
logical collections recovered from state lands and
housed in facilities in Utah.2With its partner
institution, the Hansen Planetarium, the UMNH
hosted 258,874 on-site visitors and delivered
exhibits and educational programs to another
93,624 people throughout Utah in 1999.
The important regional collections housed
at the Museum are of high scientific value. They
are central to the Museum’s mission, and its man-
date as the state museum of natural history. And,
overwhelmingly, because of the high federal own-
ership of Utah lands, the Museum’s collections
are federal collections.
Ann Hanniball
Non-Federal Museums Managing
Federal Collections
The Utah Museum of Natural History
6 CRMNo 5—2000
crisis: one to guide the deaccessioning of undocu-
mented and redundant portions of the federal
collections already under our control, and
another for selecting documented representative
samples from the mass of material to come. New
resources will undoubtedly be needed to accom-
plish these two related goals. If we move expedi-
tiously, we will be in a position to justify requests
for such resources because we will have in place a
rational and implementable method for prioritiz-
ing their expenditure.
The archeological community has gained
great credibility within the preservation world by
insisting, as did Hewett in 1904-1905, that we
do not need to save physically all of the sites, but
rather the critical information about the past that
they contain. Now is the time to build on that
credibility and demonstrate that we can discrimi-
nate between critical and non-critical informa-
tion. Archeologists, museum curators, Indian
tribes, and agency officials must join forces to
work on this next phase of the nation’s constantly
evolving historic preservation policy. We must
find ways of selecting from the great mass of
archeological material that part of the evidence of
the past that we should save for those present and
future generations.
_______________
3. Flooded Artifacts Will be Back by '07 [Jamestown artifacts lost ...
Oct 20, 2003 ... More than 900000 archaeological finds from the basement have been trucked to Fort ... The collection, or at least the vast majority of it, ...
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1004575/posts -
4. News From Indian Country - Officials break ground for archaeology ...
Artifacts arrow Officials break ground for archaeology center ... hospital in the city until 2004, when the basement flooded, damaging thousands of them. ...
indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com...id
5. The ethics of collecting cultural property: whose culture? whose ... - Google Books Result
by Phyllis Mauch Messenger - 1999 - Art - 301 pages
Archaeologists are not always without blame. Archaeology, as with many sciences ... awaiting study for publication, were stored in a basement which flooded, .
books.google.com/books?isbn=0826321259...
6. cdli - im history
In 1881, Osman Hamdi Bey, the first director of the Archaeological Museum of ... Hundreds of these objects were damaged when the basement was flooded. ...
cdli.ucla.edu/collections/im/im_history_en.html
Take care of your collections
Upvote
0
This happened with several items on the table.Just as with my Indian artifacts I feel I don't know
HELP!!!!!
