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 very preliminary review of destruction, trafficking and politics of heritage in social media of Russian trolls

troll factories: the Internet Research Agency and state-sponsored agenda building

Identified members of a Russian state-linked propaganda outlet, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), are being prosecuted for participating in ‘a sophisticated and coordinated campaign to sow disinformation and discord into American politics via social media’, ‘interfering in American electoral and political processes’. Journalist Jim Galloway has captured the logic of much of the activity: ‘let’s you and him fight’.

corrections to quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property

Regretfully, I have [had] to make corrections to my (open access) quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property: estimation of the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal-detected cultural goods. They do not undermine the findings or their significance. The miscalculation produced an underestimate that reduced the apparent significance of the results.

Preconceived notions detract from the scholarly value of analysis

My quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property does not consider a single example of illicit excavation or other illicit handling of ancient coins. Yet the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) has reacted: “Preconceived notions and value judgments detract from any scholarly value of this article.”

Is it difficult to argue that permissive regulation enables metal detectorists and private collectors to “preserve history”, when an estimation of the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal-detected cultural goods suggests that millions of cultural objects are unscientifically extracted then not reported in Europe and North America every year?

How many people are metal-detecting and how many cultural objects are they finding?

On Friday, (open-access) Cogent Social Sciences published my estimation of how many people are metal-detecting, how many hours they’re doing it and how many cultural objects they’re finding, whether they’re supplying their own private collections or whether they’re selling into the antiquities trade, supplying the licit/illicit market. Since it’s 21,084 words, excluding the bibliography, I thought it might help to post some notes and some extracts, with the data on the number of detectorists and the number of finds.

quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property: estimation of the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal-detected cultural goods

With an urgency that is highlighted by UNESCO’s consideration of “treasure hunters” and cultural trafficking –
regulation on metal detectors and underground monitoring systems and the imprisonment of (no-longer-police constable) David Cockle for illicit metal detecting, (open-access) Cogent Social Sciences have published my quantitative analysis of open-source data on metal detecting for cultural property: estimation of the scale and intensity of metal detecting and the quantity of metal-detected cultural goods.

illicit trafficking, provenance research and due diligence… and confidence and risk

Last year, UNESCO hosted a round table on the movement of cultural property in 2016: regulation, international cooperation and professional diligence for the protection of cultural heritage. (See the programme.)

Archaeologists, concerned citizens and their families are harassed and threatened by metal detectorists in the UK

Violence against cultural heritage workers, and law enforcement agents who protect cultural property, is a grimly recognised problem in insecure places. And it is at its worst extreme in places such as Syria and Iraq. But it is not only a problem in those places. Threatening (and endangering) behaviour is a feature of the heritage “debate” in secure societies as well.

According to antiquities trade lobbyist Peter Tompa, ‘you can’t find [coins] without a metal detectors’.

On the question of why a lobbyist would characterise cooperation between archaeologists and tradespeople as a frenzy among archaeologists, the lobbyist in question says that it was ‘humor/satire/irony‘. A work of auto-parody? But he has said something else even more curious…

Terrorist antiquities trading and state arms smuggling between Syria and Turkey

The antiquities trade rules in the Russia-drafted United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution against terrorist financing have been reviewed by China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States – and revised (or most significantly revised) by the United States.