Online Journal in Public Archaeology
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice (2Nd Revision)
The Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice (2nd Revision) ENGLAND & WALES improving the quality of life for all Our aim is to improve the quality of life for all through cultural and sporting activities, support the pursuit of excellence, and champion the tourism, creative and leisure industries. The Treasure Act Code of Practice (Revised) 3 Introduction Notes: This Code has effect in England and Wales; a separate code has been prepared for Northern Ireland. A Welsh language version of the Code is available on request from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. When the term ‘national museum’ is used in this document it is intended to refer to the British Museum in the case of finds from England and the National Museums & Galleries of Wales in the case of finds from Wales. References to the ‘Secretary of State’ are to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. If finders or others need further advice about any matters relating to the Treasure Act or this Code, then they are recommended to contact the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the British Museum or (for Wales) the National Museums & Galleries of Wales or their local finds liaison officer. Addresses and telephone numbers are given in Appendix 2. In many places this Code gives examples of what may or may not constitute treasure and provides advice as to how coroners may approach an inquest. It is intended to provide guidance for all those concerned with treasure. It is emphasised, however, that questions of whether or not any object constitutes treasure and how a coroner should conduct an inquiry into treasure are for the coroner to decide on the facts and circumstances of each case. -
Investigative Files the Secrets of Oak Island Joe Nickell
Investigative Files The Secrets of Oak Island Joe Nickell It has been the focus of "the world's longest and most expensive treasure hunt" and "one of the world's deepest and most costly archaeological digs" (O'Connor 1988, 1, 4), as well as being "Canada's best-known mystery" (Colombo 1988, 33) and indeed one of "the great mysteries of the world." It may even "represent an ancient artifact created by a past civilization of advanced capability" (Crooker 1978, 7, 190). The subject of these superlatives is a mysterious shaft on Oak Island in Nova Scotia's Mahone Bay. For some two centuries, greed, folly, and even death have attended the supposed "Money Pit" enigma. The Saga Briefly, the story is that in 1795 a young man named Daniel McInnis (or McGinnis) was roaming Oak Island when he came upon a shallow depression in the ground. Above it, hanging from the limb of a large oak was an old tackle block. McInnis returned the next day with two friends who-steeped in the local lore of pirates and treasure troves-set to work to excavate the site. They soon uncovered a layer of flagstones and, ten feet further, a tier of rotten oak logs. They proceeded another fifteen feet into what they were sure was a man-made shaft but, tired from their efforts, they decided to cease work until they could obtain assistance. However, between the skepticism and superstition of the people who lived on the mainland, they were unsuccessful. The imagined cache continued to lie dormant until early in the next century, when the trio joined with a businessman named Simeon Lynds from the town of Onslow to form a treasure-hunting consortium called the Onslow Company. -
Response to Consultation on Revising the Definition of Treasure in The
Revising the definition of treasure in the Treasure Act 1996 and revising the related codes of practice Response Form You can reply to the consultation by downloading and completing this response form and sending it to [email protected]. You do not have to reply to all parts of the consultation, you can reply only to the parts that interest you. The Response Form contains a Disclosure of Responses statement which you must read, understand and agree. If you do not your response may be considered invalid and would not be considered as part of the consultation. Instructions Open and save the form, including your name or organisation in the title. Please click on the grey area in each box in order to type in your answer. There is a 1250 character limit (including spaces) for responses on the form. Please email [email protected] if you have any difficulties with the form. Disclosure of responses and Data Protection The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), 100 Parliament St Westminster, London SW1A 2BQ, is the data controller in respect of any information you provide in your answers. Your personal data is being collected and processed by DCMS, which processes your personal data on the basis of informed consent. We will hold the data you provide for a maximum of 2 years. You can find out more here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-digital- culture-media-sport/about/personal-information-charter We will process the names and addresses and email addresses provided by respondents, and information about which organisations respondents belong to, where this is provided. -
Treasure Act 1996
Finders keepers? Treasure Act 1996 22 MARCH 2010 CATEGORY: ARTICLE The discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard in July 2009 brought the law relating to the ownership of treasure back into the headlines. Currently in storage at the British Museum, the largest Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold ever found has now been valued at £3.25 million. Treasure belongs to the Crown and a key concern for landowners is whether they own or have any rights over items found on their land. ‘Treasure’ is dened in the Treasure Act 1996 (the ‘Act’) as any object that is at least three hundred years old at the date it is found and which has at least a 10 per cent gold or silver content. Coins must be found as a group to be classed as treasure. Anything found with treasure is also included, as is anything at least two hundred years old, but designated by the Secretary of State as being of ‘outstanding historical, archaeological or cultural importance’. This currently includes pre-historic base-metal assemblages. There is a legal obligation for treasure nders to notify the local coroner within fourteen days of making a nd, or realising a nd was treasure. To fail to do so is a criminal offence, punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of three months or a ne of £5,000. The Act introduced a Treasure Valuation Committee which values the nd and determines the reward. The standard recommendation is for the reward to be divided equally between the landowner and the nder, as happened with the Staffordshire Hoard. -
Prehistoric Britain
Prehistoric Britain Plated disc brooch Kent, England Late 6th or early 7th century AD Bronze boars from the Hounslow Hoard 1st century BC-1st century AD Hounslow, Middlesex, England Visit resource for teachers Key Stage 2 Prehistoric Britain Contents Before your visit Background information Resources Gallery information Preliminary activities During your visit Gallery activities: introduction for teachers Gallery activities: briefings for adult helpers Gallery activity: Neolithic mystery objects Gallery activity: Looking good in the Neolithic Gallery activity: Neolithic farmers Gallery activity: Bronze Age pot Gallery activity: Iron Age design Gallery activity: An Iron Age hoard After your visit Follow-up activities Prehistoric Britain Before your visit Prehistoric Britain Before your visit Background information Prehistoric Britain Archaeologists and historians use the term ‘Prehistory’ to refer to a time in a people’s history before they used a written language. In Britain the term Prehistory refers to the period before Britain became part of the Roman empire in AD 43. The prehistoric period in Britain lasted for hundreds of thousands of years and this long period of time is usually divided into: Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic (sometimes these three periods are combined and called the Stone Age), Bronze Age and Iron Age. Each of these periods might also be sub-divided into early, middle and late. The Palaeolithic is often divided into lower, middle and upper. Early Britain British Isles: Humans probably first arrived in Britain around 800,000 BC. These early inhabitants had to cope with extreme environmental changes and they left Britain at least seven times when conditions became too bad. -
A Tale of Two Prosecutions: Prosecuting Heritage Crime in England and the United States, a Cautionary Tale
This is a repository copy of A Tale of Two Prosecutions: Prosecuting Heritage Crime in England and the United States, a Cautionary Tale. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/98932/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Shelbourn, C.H. (2014) A Tale of Two Prosecutions: Prosecuting Heritage Crime in England and the United States, a Cautionary Tale. Art Antiquity and Law, XIX (3). pp. 253-264. ISSN 1362-2331 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 1 Caveat: author version A TALE OF TWO PROSECUTIONS: PROSECUTING HERITAGE CRIME IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES, A CAUTIONARY TALE. INTRODUCTION In an ideal world the protection of a nation’s cultural heritage would not depend on the use of the criminal law, but in the real world it is a sad fact that it does. -
Warrior Heroes Or Warrior Bullies? Debra Lustig and Carlee A
The South Station Hoard Imagining, Creating, and Empowering Violent Remains Carlee A. Bradbury Karie Edwards Debra Lustig Katie Sickman Courtney Weida Academic Discourse Fictionalized Records Creative Process The Lockers One 9 On Hoards: Project Introduction Carlee A. Bradbury Two 19 Visual Prologue Karie Edwards Three 43 Fictional Narratives, Archeologist’s Notes, Primary Sources Found in the Future Carlee A. Bradbury Four 55 Warrior Heroes or Warrior Bullies? Debra Lustig and Carlee A. Bradbury Five 87 Making South Station: Processes for Visualization and Construction Karie Edwards Six 97 Opening the Locker: Constructing the Design Identity Katie Sickman Seven 107 Gendering the Hoard: The Visual Culture of Tween Girls Courtney L. Weida Eight 145 Closing the Book, Leaving the Locker Open Carlee A. Bradbury Appendix 1 151 Lesson Plan Courtney L. Weida Resources 161 Endnotes Locker One On Hoards: Project Introduction Carlee A. Bradbury South Station Hoard Introduction This collaborative arts research project compares the landmark discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork discovered in 2009, with an imagined hoard from present day pre-adolescent girls. We constructed a subterranean installation, generated speculative historical documents, collected and embellished social networking “artifacts,” and photographed the entire process. In addition to dealing with the notion of a medieval hoard as a signifier of a medieval warrior as both hero and anti-hero, we address contemporary issues relating to gender, youth culture, bullying, adolescent development, iconicity, status symbols, and additional contemporary tween issues. Our fabricated hoard was stashed away in a long forgotten locker in Boston’s South Station by a group of tween girls in 2012 and found by a group of archaeologists in the year 2812. -
Reviewing the Treasure
E M E H C S S E I T I U Q I T N A E L B A T R O P Reviewing the Treasure Act The consultation closes on The government has launched a review of the Treasure April 30: to comment go to www.gov.uk/government/news/ Act 1996. To help readers respond to caasne i ni mScoptlaondr;t tahant etd upcautibonlail c gTorevaesurrnem. “Wenet -araen anwoauren”,c seasys- tnhee w- outreach to the detecting community prelpaonrst,- “ttoh-atp trhoetree cmt-aytr beea ssoumree -finds consultation, BritAi scohns uAltartciohn oane prooplosaglsy preshsoeuldn btes im cporomvedm to eencnoutraagrei es feeling that defining a find by its from a wide rangeto uopfd aptee thres Tpreeasucrte iAvcet s finds reporting and adherence to the monetary value could overshadow the What d19o96e cso dtehs eof practice, revise detecting code of practice; and that archaeological or historic importance consulthtae dteiofinit iponr ofp Toresaesu?re archaeological excavation of any kind, that it may have.” However, it and commence relevant by professional archaeologists or others, continues, the act seeks to preserve provisions in the Coroners would need a permit, as is currently the objects of national importance for & Justice Act 2009 was case in Northern Ireland. “We are public enjoyment. Research has launched on February 1. aware”, says the report, “that these shown market price to be the best It is hoped proposed suggestions would involve considerable indicator of rare and important changes would preserve changes to the current process.” objects that currently escape the more significant finds for For now Treasure is defined as any Treasure definition. -
The Law and Practice Regarding Coin Finds
THE LAW AND PRACTICE REGARDING COIN FINDS Treasure Trove Law in the United States John M. Kleeberg, Esq.* The United States, although a comparatively young country, has been the site of some remarkable archaeological discoveries. Litigation has concerned such remark- able objects as a statue of King George III that was hacked into pieces by patriots in 1776 1 and a prehistoric Indian canoe.2 The United States has also been the site of the discovery of large money hoards. One hoard discovered in Baltimore in August 1934 consisted of 3,558 United States gold pieces.3 Another hoard, discovered in Puerto Rico in March 1990, comprised $43 million in currency.4 Coin hoards are not found as frequently as in Europe. Coinage has been in gener- al use in what is now the continental United States for less than four hundred years. The earliest date of deposit for a coin hoard in what is now the continental United States is 1631.5 Coin hoards sensu stricto (i.e., not including finds of paper money) are found in the continental United States at the rate of about three every year.6 In England and Wales, by contrast, coin hoards are found at the rate of twenty to forty every year.7 England and Wales have a much smaller population and area, but that area has used coinage for two millennia. Furthermore, for much of the period that * B.A., Yale, 1979; D.Phil., Oxford, 1988; J.D., New York University School of Law, 2003. The author was Curator of Modern Coins and Currency at The American Numismatic Soci- ety in New York, 1990-2000. -
The Development and Future of the Treasure Act and Portable
Th e Development and Future of the Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme Roger Bland All countries have legal frameworks and other systems intended to protect objects of archaeological, historical or cultural importance found in their territory by members of the public, either by chance or as a result of deliberate searching. While these approaches vary widely, in most countries – although not in England and Wales – there is a legal requirement to report all objects of archaeological importance and normally the state claims ownership of them; there are mechanisms for paying rewards to the fi nders and there is usually protection for archaeological sites and controls over the use of metal detectors (Bland 1998). Th is paper looks at the development of twin mechanisms to deal with this issue in England and Wales, the 1996 Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme, both of which were ten years old in 2007. Treasure Treasure Trove Th e 1996 Treasure Act was the culmination of a long series of unsuccessful attempts to reform the common law of Treasure Trove, which goes back to the mid-19th century. Under the old law, only gold and silver objects whose owners were unknown and which had been deliberately buried with the intention of recovery could be declared Treasure Trove and thus become Crown property. Since 1886 the Government had paid ex gratia rewards to fi nders for declaring fi nds (Hill 1936). Th e fi nal, and successful, attempt to reform the law was started by the Surrey Archaeological Society at the end of the 1980s as a response to the looting of the site at Wanborough (O’Connell and Bird 1994), where a very large hoard of Iron Age coins had been systematically stolen by detector users and great damage done to the Romano-Celtic temple there; subsequent prosecutions failed because of the defi ciencies of the common law of Treasure Trove. -
The Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice (2Nd Revision)
The Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice (2nd Revision) ENGLAND & WALES improving the quality of life for all Our aim is to improve the quality of life for all through cultural and sporting activities, support the pursuit of excellence, and champion the tourism, creative and leisure industries. The Treasure Act Code of Practice (Revised) 3 Introduction Notes: This Code has effect in England and Wales; a separate code has been prepared for Northern Ireland. A Welsh language version of the Code is available on request from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. When the term ‘national museum’ is used in this document it is intended to refer to the British Museum in the case of finds from England and the National Museums & Galleries of Wales in the case of finds from Wales. References to the ‘Secretary of State’ are to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. If finders or others need further advice about any matters relating to the Treasure Act or this Code, then they are recommended to contact the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the British Museum or (for Wales) the National Museums & Galleries of Wales or their local finds liaison officer. Addresses and telephone numbers are given in Appendix 2. In many places this Code gives examples of what may or may not constitute treasure and provides advice as to how coroners may approach an inquest. It is intended to provide guidance for all those concerned with treasure. It is emphasised, however, that questions of whether or not any object constitutes treasure and how a coroner should conduct an inquiry into treasure are for the coroner to decide on the facts and circumstances of each case. -
Who Owns the Past? by Andrew Selkirk
2nd redraft Who owns the past? by Andrew Selkirk 9 Nassington Road, London NW3 2TX tel: 0171 435 7517 email: [email protected] Contents Introduction Solutions 1. The 'market' in archaeology The populist answer The professionals The independent 2. From amateur to professional: a history of modern archaeology The 'paid volunteer' 'RESCUE' Archaeology and government PPG 16: Planning comes to archaeology Conclusions 3. The supply side The leisure revolution Attracting the amateur What shall we call them? How to run an amateur society Where the government can help Universities Training outside universities Networking Conclusion: why archaeology cannot be left to the academics/professionals 4. Treasure Trove State or individual: the Kimpton urns National or local: the Snettisham hoard National or global: the Elgin marbles Treasure Trove Finders and landowners Law 2 Management The problems Law and practice The two approaches The case against The reporting process Costs Scotland Conclusions Appendix: The British Museum's statistics 5. Recommendations Practical matters: proposals for specific bodies English Heritage The Royal Commissions on Historical Monuments Churches Nautical archaeology De-regulation The Ancient Monuments Act Treasure Trove The threat from Europe UNESCO and World Heritage sites How to help the independent sector Death duties' and estate taxes The Charity Acts Premises The National Lottery Where money should be spent Set targets for research for English Heritage Education Conclusion 3 Introduction Almost every day, I receive a phone call. "I would like to volunteer to go on an excavation: how can I do it?" Sometimes it is from one of our subscribers to Current Archaeology.