Hello,
I am afraid that this report sent by bigbcbear is out-of-date here in Europe. I have already get it from the net but it tured out that threre has been many changes in law in different european countries. I am especially interested in Italy and I have got in touch with a very helpfull detectorist (thanks again Nik) from Italy. He gave me interesting information. Find if below.
"and about metal detecting:
my old post is a little confusing:
there are laws in Italy that are the same for all regions, the most recent and restrictive (made in
2001) never deny use of metal detector but contains these essential points:
1- you cannot make archeologic inspections without permission .
2- nobody can possess archeologic items.
3-every archeologic item ocassionally found must be delivered to local authorities within 24 hours.
this means that if you are detecting on, or near an archeological place you SHOULD be making an
archeologic inspection (as it is), you can only detect far from an archeological place and not in a
place under tie. the permission claimed in this law is never released to single persons, never ask
for this to authorities and never tell them what you are doing.
these restrictions are expecially true for places under tie but the problem is that only bigger places
are signaled with trusts so you really never know if the field you are detecting is a forbidden place.
(I know the most of territory in Toscana is under tie) as I mentioned in my post, southern and central regions have special laws but not so restrictive as
the national one, the real problem is that there is more surveillance on these places and severe
behavior regard abusive research.
yes, Mdetecting is very hard and dangerous but...
I said "SHOULD be making.." because if you are detecting and have not found old coins or others
"old" things nobody can demonstrate that you are making archeologic inspection. (you could be
searching for recent coins or other recent things) The region where i live is full of detectorists and usually we do not search on fields under tie, but usually on archeologic places of poor interest and we have this behaviour: we throw everything we picked up when we see someone (of course expecially police) coming to us and we never say what exactly we are searching.
generally they invite you to leave the place and, I'm sure, that is expecially true for non-Italian
people. So take your MD with you, only take care where you go and if you can, ask permission to
the farmer".
And territory under tie means (second info):
"i try to answer your question.
"Under Tie", i mean a series of archeological places where authorities know there are ruines still buried (always cultivated fields) and the only thing you can see is grass or a mix of soil and bricks. in these places there are big limitations: edification, some farm activities and of course archeological inspections and md. and of course there is a bigger sourveillance there. the problem as i told you is that they are never signaled on the field and the only way to know their location is to ask to authorities."
Best Regards,
Ardengard
