Treasure Hunting

[LadyShea]

So, let's fight about this some, livius or whomever

Private treasure hunters (Odyssey being the most obvious big time one) have the best equipment, and the most incentive to actually find and catalog sites with historical value, governments do not.

IIRC Spain never looked for the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes but sought and won ownership rights to the treasure when they neither found it nor recovered it? Did the bulk of it ever belong to the country of Spain?

The HMS Victory was located miles away from where anyone had even thought to look before, and had been lost for hundreds of years, but there is a big stink over the rights to that wreck as well. If it weren't for greedy treasure hunters, it wouldn't have been found at all probably.

[livius drusus]

PISTOLES AT DAWN, MADAM.

( for a bit tho.)

[LadyShea]

LOL, I just want to discuss all the things, and a fight seemed a way to make it more interesting.

[Vivisectus]

Some of those arrogant bastards just pillaged important sites, though. You could argue that Schliemann did more harm than good: he scraped out Troy like a gourd and left an enormous hole right through all the good archaeology, and Carter carted (haha) huge amounts of Egyptian national treasure away.

[LadyShea]

Yes, I am aware of past and present issues. However if the various governments would contract or partner with these firms...giving them a cut...the incentive would remain so those hight tech resources would be available. It costs a bundle to search for and identify and excavate sites. That money has to come from somewhere, and I don't see taxpayers clamoring for more of their money to go to funding for treasure hunting.

It serves nobody, IMO, to have wreck sites undiscovered and getting destroyed by fishing nets and such

ETA: I am mostly talking about shipwrecks in International waters, however amateurs with metal detectors fall over treasure every other day in parts of Europe (UK!) and receive money for doing so, and so there is a place for treasure hunting on land too

[livius drusus]

There are two main issues I have with Odyssey et al. The first is that they are not archaeologists. Their aim is to recover as much cash or easily-convertible-into-cash as possible as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The "Black Swan" was money to Odyssey and that's all it was.

Modern archaeology has learned the hard lesson of its dirty cupidinous origins that accumulating as much shiny stuff as you can get your hands on is not the best way to learn about the past. In fact, it's more like the best way to completely destroy an archaeological site so that precious knowledge is lost forever.

There has been no historical information about the Mercedes wreck published that I know of. The most we've gotten has been the trail of research that led them to the site, and we only know about that because it was subpoenaed for the court cases. Odyssey certainly weren't going to share that with the world. Keeping their practices secret is of paramount importance to ensure other people won't sneak in when they take a break or beat them to the punch next time.

So they bust up the site, archaeologically speaking, and all we have to show for it is the money they've made. That's great for them, but it's shit for the rest of the world.

The second issue, and this is a problem I have with all the snobby pricks who swirl their wine goblets and complain that it's ever so unfair that museums are having to return looted artifacts to their countries of origins, is that they broke the law. Odyssey deliberately hid the identity and location of the Mercedes because they knew Spain would have legal claim to it. They smuggled a half billion dollars of Spanish gold and silver coins onto Gibraltar literally in the dark of night and from there flew them out to Florida.

Now, Odyssey claimed the find was made in international waters, but they wouldn't say where and they lied about not knowing the identity of the ship. They knew perfectly well which ship it was. They set out looking for the Mercedes from the beginning and they found her. The coins and cannon confirmed it.

So, you know, fuck them. They knew from day one this was a shady operation from a legal standpoint. They tried their best to cover it up, and once busted, to claim ignorance. Not a single court ever ruled in their favor, and God knows they went through a shitload of them.

As for the HMS Victory recovery, that's a deal they've struck with the British government. I hate it like poison, but at least it's legal this time. For the record, I hate it because again they don't give a rat's ass about the archaeological significance of the wreck, and because they are making out like complete bandits. The government will pay all their costs and Odyssey gets 80% of value of any cargo coins or artifacts, 50% of the value of objects they recover that were part of the ship and its operations, and 80% of the value of any private property they recover.

They are strip-mining the past.

[lisarea]

Not really treasure hunting, and man, fucking boats. I don't know shit about those boats and whatnot. But you know I like a fight.

So my sister used to be a field archaeologist, specializing in burials. Most of her work came as required surveys of potential building sites, meant to ensure that private and government developers don't destroy anything important to build a Walmart or a highway.

This isn't super high tech stuff, but a lot of the time, they'd find that amateurs had been out and disturbed the sites already, stealing and destroying all kinds of things, including human remains.

Developers and many local government officials love that, of course, because when a bunch of rubes come in and fuck everything up ahead of time, they don't have to wait around for a bunch of nerds to catalog everything; and most of those artifacts don't really have a whole lot of monetary value anyway, so it's not important to them.

So there really are a lot of people who support private efforts like that, but it does a lot of damage. It's kind of a pretty big tradeoff to make for a negligible goal. I mean, so what's the big deal if some historical sites stay undisturbed for a while? Is that so much worse than having some private party take possession of artifacts?

If there's a real public interest in some specific site or something, then governments could set some kind of bounty ahead of time or something with clear guidelines, but the idea of a broad finders keepers policy is kind of scary. If people are out there fucking up burial sites just so they can display a human femur in their living room or whatever, I hate to think what they'd do to get to something that was worth money and that they could legally sell.

[LadyShea]

As for the HMS Victory recovery, that's a deal they've struck with the British government. I hate it like poison, but at least it's legal this time. For the record, I hate it because again they don't give a rat's ass about the archaeological significance of the wreck, and because they are making out like complete bandits. The government will pay all their costs and Odyssey gets 80% of value of any cargo coins or artifacts, 50% of the value of objects they recover that were part of the ship and its operations, and 80% of the value of any private property they recover.

They are strip-mining the past.

We may need an update about that on a certain blog, because it looks like that deal isn't going to hold up and is all fucked up because the Heritage whatever charity has zero dollars so they can't pay for shit. Archaeology News : Odyssey Victory salvage plan hit by fresh revelations | Heritage Daily - Latest Archaeology News and Archaeological Press Releases : Archaeology Press Releases

I watched the shows about this particular discovery, and they did have at least one archaeologist on board. When they found human remains he shut the site down in order to report it to the UK military...so that's something. Maybe they learned, or maybe they added some legit looking stuff for TV. Either way, it seemed somewhat less shady than the Mercedes.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Not really treasure hunting, and man, fucking boats. I don't know shit about those boats and whatnot. But you know I like a fight.

So my sister used to be a field archaeologist, specializing in burials. Most of her work came as required surveys of potential building sites, meant to ensure that private and government developers don't destroy anything important to build a Walmart or a highway.

This isn't super high tech stuff, but a lot of the time, they'd find that amateurs had been out and disturbed the sites already, stealing and destroying all kinds of things, including human remains.

Developers and many local government officials love that, of course, because when a bunch of rubes come in and fuck everything up ahead of time, they don't have to wait around for a bunch of nerds to catalog everything; and most of those artifacts don't really have a whole lot of monetary value anyway, so it's not important to them.

So there really are a lot of people who support private efforts like that, but it does a lot of damage. It's kind of a pretty big tradeoff to make for a negligible goal. I mean, so what's the big deal if some historical sites stay undisturbed for a while? Is that so much worse than having some private party take possession of artifacts?

If there's a real public interest in some specific site or something, then governments could set some kind of bounty ahead of time or something with clear guidelines, but the idea of a broad finders keepers policy is kind of scary. If people are out there fucking up burial sites just so they can display a human femur in their living room or whatever, I hate to think what they'd do to get to something that was worth money and that they could legally sell.

I think there needs to be guidelines, and I am against finders keepers overall. How to police that in International waters, with wrecks that may have carried private goods, or plundered goods, or who knows who owns that shit I have no idea

On land though, the UK's system seems to work. The landowner gets a cut, the finder gets a cut, the gov gets the loot.

[LadyShea]

Also, they got some good info on the sites

Here is the high res photomosaic of the Victory site


Here's some archaeology papers on some of their finds
Archaeological Papers

[livius drusus]

There's still a lot of opposition to the UK's Portable Antiquities Scheme, especially from archaeologists. Most of these metal detector discoveries have not been properly excavated. They just root around until they find whatever set off the machine then take it to their local Finds Liaison Officer. It's a rare finder who stops what he's doing to call in the experts. When the mere imprint an artifact has left in the ground can carry a lot of important information, there's a great deal lost when objects are dug up haphazardly.

Think of textile and hide fragments, for instance. You know how important and rare those kinds of survivals are. A lot of coin hoards were buried in fabric or leather purses which degraded over time. If there's an archaeological team sifting through that site one dust mote at a time, they'll find tiny pieces of material that won't even register as material to a hobbyist. Imagine how much knowledge we would have lost if the Beau Street Hoard had just been scooped up by a metal detectorist rather than having been cut out in a solid soil block and then carefully excavated by experts.

Then there are the outright tragedies like the Crosby Garrett helmet which fell through a loophole in the 1996 Treasure Act and has disappeared into private ownership, nobody knows where.

I think the PAS is a good idea in many ways, but archaeologically speaking it's not all that far from looting. I would be blissfully happy if the law were amended to require on-site archaeological investigation at the find moment.

[LadyShea]

I worry about amateurs way more than pros...even if the pros are greedy fucks. There's a Confederate sub out in Mobile Bay somewhere. The Bay is shallow and lots of rednecks fishing out there...I wouldn't be surprised if some day one picked it up with his fish finder and called his friend with a shrimper or some shit to just haul that thing up. What you just described about the UK is also a problem in that area.

If you don't have pros out looking for stuff, you have a bunch of yokels doing it.

[BrotherMan]

All y'all are forgetting the most compelling arguments that can be made.

[Kael]

I was going to bring that up, but I couldn't find an Indiana Jones smiley, and then I got distracted by all the very smart things very smart people were saying.

[Ymir's blood]

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Kael

I was going to bring that up, but I couldn't find an Indiana Jones smiley, and then I got distracted by all the very smart things very smart people were saying.

Inorite? I had a joke about experience points all chambered and ready to go, but I don't want to shitpoast in the interesting thrad.

[LadyShea]

You can shitpoast, I do. The thread is only interesting because of our resident historical lady....which I knew would be the case so I called her out to make her be interesting.

[Kael]

Well, in effort to support both:

I come down pretty heavily on the side of 'private treasure hunters are bad.' I think the profit motive does a lot more harm than good in areas like this, where (if you'll forgive the after-school-special sentiment) knowledge is the real treasure. There are lots of areas of inquiry and investigation where any payoff, monetary or otherwise, is much too far off for private industry to be sufficiently engaged, or that have an unattractive investment/profit ratio in purely monetary terms, or that the funding company can't slap a patent on, etc., etc. These areas are best left to, or at least directly supervised by, parties like governments or universities, though of course they have their own problems. At least their aims are more likely to be in the same ballpark as the interests of the discipline.

So, to sum up:

[LadyShea]

If public non-profit institutions actually could afford to go hunting, complete with all the high tech equipment, yes, that would be ideal. But they can't, so they don't.

Until they can, wouldn't it be better to somehow create partnerships between for-profit companies and public or non-profit institutions to help both benefit?

Seriously, with all the hoards found in the UK by amateurs with 100.00 metal detectors, you would think the government, universities, and/or museums would have some of their own people out there every day. I'll bet there is a metal detector you can pull behind one of those suped up golf carts to cover a lot of ground.

[Kael]

I'm not saying there's not room for improvement, and of course limited funding is one of the big issues with non-profit institutions. But, with for-profit institutions, all that extra funding comes with (IMO) a pretty hefty price tag: suitable monetary returns on their investment, which they can, have, and will in the future, prioritize above all other considerations on any given project. Maybe in some cases the two can be harnessed successfully, and an enterprising salvage crew can make their bankroll while still minding the other side of the issue, but I'm rather skeptical that this will be feasible in most circumstances. Not without either the academic or the monetary side suffering, an equation which historically has been dramatically weighted against the academic side. I don't see that changing without a change in our fundamental cultural values.

I'm going to say right out that I'd rather a site lay undiscovered until and unless someone with at least some consideration for its intrinsic value is able to go looking, than to have it potentially destroyed by glorified pawn shop operations.

[LadyShea]

Watch Treasure Quest on your Netflix or Prime or whatever and see what you think. The show was shot after the super shady Mercedes deal, so any reforms might have been motivated by an effort at boosting public opinion or various types of ass covering, but they were doing good archaeological work and contributing to the body of knowledge.

The problem with undiscovered sites is that they can get destroyed (dragged fishing nets, farming, development, etc.), or discovered by amateurs, and so we can't learn anything at all.

Now I have to remember the deal about a lake getting really low during a drought and locals just strolling out to the now accessible historic sites. livius? Was that on the blog?

We have a shipwreck on one of our beaches that is uncovered by storms once in awhile. It's not been positively identified yet, but when it is uncovered tourists flock to it and touch it and stuff, and probably take bits of it as souvenirs. It would be nice to get the site properly cataloged. Some lay experts go out there and try to protect it, but can't be there 24/7. It's usually back under dunes within 2 weeks.

[Watser?]

I've never heard of people with metal detectors finding anything here other than grenades or bombs from WWII.

There is a European-wide treaty on archeological finds, the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage aka the Valetta Treaty.

It deals with the protection, preservation and scientific research of archaeological heritage in Europe. In particular, the revised Convention focuses on the problem of conservation of archaeological heritage in the face of development projects.

So whenever there is a development project an archeologist is on the scene for when they find something (which in some areas like this town is pretty much always). This is almost always how they find anything interesting in this country nowadays.

Apparently it also has rules on the use of metal detectors:

Excavations must be under the control of qualified, specially authorised persons (see Art. 3, para ii). In addition, “the use of metal detectors and any other detection equipment must be subject to specific prior authorization” (see Art. 3, para ii). Otherwise the arbitrary use of such equipment leads to destruction of context by digging up anything that the machine registers without knowing what it actually is.

[LadyShea]

Excavations must be under the control of qualified, specially authorised persons (see Art. 3, para ii). In addition, “the use of metal detectors and any other detection equipment must be subject to specific prior authorization” (see Art. 3, para ii). Otherwise the arbitrary use of such equipment leads to destruction of context by digging up anything that the machine registers without knowing what it actually is.

Does this refer to any and all use of metal detectors, or only on designated sites or what?

People finding stuff with metal detectors The History Blog » Treasures

[Watser?]

Yeah, I think it only applies to the development projects or to excavations, otherwise metal detectors would be out completely. It is a binding treaty in all of Europe (including the Asiatic parts of Russia and Turkey but not including Belarus).

I see in that first article they found it during a renovation, so they were digging around for that. I think the treaty would apply in that case, but am not sure.

[LadyShea]

I was rabbit holing from the history blog and found this here

Metal Detecting 101 | National Geographic Channel

Unfortunately, the archaeological community, who we have always tried to work with, has really cast a bad light on metal detecting,” Butch Holcombe, publisher of American Digger magazine, told a newspaper interviewer recently. “They’ve called us ‘looters’ and ‘pot hunters’ and ‘thieves of history.’ And all of that is not so.”

As a recent Wired article on metal detecting detailed, enthusiasts often harvest and amass vast hordes of discarded or lost items, ranging from contemporary trash—broken watches, children’s lost Matchbox cars, medallions from cremations—to intriguing and sometimes valuable historical relics. Detector-wielding hobbyists who comb San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, for example, have pulled up brass buttons and even gold pieces dating back to the city’s infamous 1906 Earthquake, items left behind by the quarter-million or so people who were temporarily housed in shelters in the park after their homes were destroyed by the quake.

But occasionally, such amateur scavengers also manage to make significant archaeological discoveries, or uncover finds worth princely sums. In northern England last year, a metal-detecting buff named Darren Webster was exploring a field near his home during a lunch break and unearthed a lead container filled with silver coins and jewelry that dated back to the Viking rulers of the region, more than 1,000 years ago. The discovery was hailed by the British Museum as one of the most important Viking archaeological finds ever.


In another positive development, archaeologists have started trying to work with metal-detecting buffs, rather than against them. A few years ago, when archaeologists took a fresh look at Little Bighorn in Montana, the site of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s 1876 defeat by the Sioux, they recruited amateurs with metal detectors to form a column and sweep the entire battlefield. But instead of stopping to dig when they heard a beep, the hobbyists left the objects in place and marked them with flags, which allowed archaeologists to take careful notes on each artifact’s orientation and declination. That teamwork yielded data that enabled archaeologists to reconstruct the actual sequence of events in the battle and disprove the legends that arose, according to Ewen.

Ewen is eager to see more such cooperation. “Most of the [metal-detecting hobbyists] want to help,” he says. “They’re interested in the past. Our job is to channel that interest in a constructive way.”