a very low estimate of metal-detecting in the United Kingdom, according to the Portable Antiquities Scheme

While I was assessing open-source data on metal-detecting for cultural goods and trying to generate “low estimates” of the numbers of artefact-hunters in various territories, in 2017, the “tentative”, “least worst…, rather than… best” data suggested that there might be around 27,897 in England and Wales, 1,447 in Scotland and 225 in Northern Ireland and, so, a total of 29,569 (so, around 30,000) across the United Kingdom.

Since then, I’ve been criticised in various ways, in public and in private, for those estimates and my methods for reaching them (including my attempt to account for illicit as well as licit artefact-hunters). Yet, now, according to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (as shared by the National Council for Metal Detecting and relayed by Paul Barford on Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues), “there are as many as 40,000 people metal-detecting in the UK”.

artefact-hunting in drug plantations and by cannabis-cultivators in Ukraine (around 2014)

In the course of researching artefact-hunting in Eastern Europe, I found a discussion of the activity among drug-producers in Ukraine, as both a problem for some and a practice of others. This material, based on an 88-message conversation between early 2014 and early 2015, has been cut from the current draft of the text.

attitudes to personal and public health precautions among artefact-hunters amid the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic offers a novel lens through which to analyse the attitudes of artefact-hunters towards personal and public health precautions in particular and science, society and the state in general.

mental health and treasure-hunting

Following the posts on trafficking of antiquities and narcotics and women’s participation in looting and trafficking, this is yet another section that has been cut from a study on looting in Turkey, Greece and Cyprus.

This is a difficult issue to discuss. I am not associating mental health with criminal activity (I have, after all, experienced mental health issues myself), nor any of the legal participants in metal-detecting or treasure-hunting with criminal activity (nor even with each other). Here, I am only interested in a potential connection between participation in treasure-hunting and experience of mental health.

sex and treasure: women’s participation in looting and trafficking of Mediterranean antiquities

Following the post of work-in-progress on antiquities and narcotics in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, this is another section that has been cut from the same study (minus one paragraph, while I process some data). Hopefully, this one will be incorporated into a study on the demographics of cultural property criminals.

to get a good price, ‘you have to sell in international bidding sites’: trafficking of metal-detected cultural goods from South Asia

I’m happy to say that I’ve published a chapter on trafficking of metal-detected cultural goods from South Asia in a book on criminal networks and law enforcement: global perspectives on illegal enterprise by Saskia Hufnagel and Anton Moiseienko. There is a postprint copy.

antiquities dealer Fuat Aydıner and 14,000 cultural objects

The basics of this case are [had appeared to be] fairly simple, yet its implications may [still] be far-reaching, if it is ever satisfactorily concluded, whether it results in convictions or acquittals. This post covers the sources; the question of whether it is the biggest case in the history of the Republic of Turkey (which it may be, by one practically immeasurable definition); a summary of the priceless objects and fake objects that have been seized; a summary of the metal-detectors, money, guns and drugs that have been seized; and a summary of the suspects [people whose names have been reported in relation to the investigation], with separate sections on unspecified businessman Onur Uğurlu, antiquities dealer Fuat Aydıner and aviation businessman Gökhan Sarıgöl. Then, there is a note on conspiracy and coincidence.

a response to a response to a response on metal-detecting and open-source analysis

Pieterjan Deckers, Andres Dobat, Natasha Ferguson, Stijn Heeren, Michael Lewis and Suzie Thomas have posted a response to a response to a response on metal-detecting and open-source analysis. Pieterjan submitted it on the 26th of August 2018, but it triggered the spam filter; because it had been filtered as spam, I wasn’t notified that it had been submitted. Thankfully, Pieterjan e-mailed me this morning and I found out what had happened. It is online now.

metal detecting for cultural objects until ‘there is nothing left’: the potential and limits of digital data, netnographic data and market data for analysis

As part of a special issue on advances in art crime research, open-access journal Arts has published my study of metal detecting for cultural objects until ‘there is nothing left’: the potential and limits of digital data, netnographic data and market data for analysis.

I would particularly like to thank the peer-reviewers for enduring and Arts for publishing an exceptionally long piece, which presents the arguments over the methods, the raw data for the methods and some tests of the methods in one place. So, now, everything is available for reuse and reassessment.

a response to a response on metal-detecting and open-source analysis

Last spring, I published a quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property: [an] estimation of the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal-detected cultural goods in Australia, Austria, (Flanders and elsewhere in) Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, (the jurisdictions of England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland within) the United Kingdom and the United States (Hardy, 2017a).

This summer, Pieterjan Deckers (in the Netherlands), Andres Dobat (in Denmark), Natasha Ferguson (in the United Kingdom), Stijn Heeren (in the Netherlands), Michael Lewis (in the United Kingdom) and Suzie Thomas (in Finland) published a consideration of the complexities of metal detecting policy and practice: a response to Samuel Hardy, ‘quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property’ (Cogent Social Sciences 3, 2017) (Deckers and others, 2018).