Re: In Britain, Guys With Metal Detectors Find Respect Along With History

On May 11, 8:20 am, Whiskers <catwhee...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-05-11, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Is this true?

Essentially, yes.

I mean do the museums think the cost of the items
stolen is out weighed by the items brought forward?

Detectorists working outside the law and in secret can cause a lot of
damage to archaeological sites (and sell artefacts illegally too, but
that's a secondary concern).  If instead the authorities recognise that
the acvtivity goes on and encourage landowners and hobbyists to be open
about what turns up and to co-operate with historians and archaeologists,
information can be gained instead of lost.

Detectorists in the UK can still dream of finding a fortune - but now they
can do it legally and above-board and their finds enter the public record
and add to the sum of knowledge.  They can even get on TV and have their
names associated with treasures on display in museums.

There are a lot of
people with detectors out there, only when the few learn the technique
for actually finding items is it a possibly destructive occupation.

For many years, detectorists worked in secret and kept their finds to
themselves or sold them illegally - and because of the secrecy,
archaeologically important finds went unrecorded and sites were disturbed
or even destroyed.  Some damage is still done, but now the detectorists
can operate openly and have little reason not to co-operate with
archaeologists.  Some hobbyists have even become amateur archaeologists
themselves, or work alongside local historians and museums to help locate
sites and recover artefacts from spoil-heaps and the ploughed layers.

The only secrecy detectorists in this country now need, is from each other
when they are competing for the the glory of the next big find.  
Archaeologists would prefer to be involved even then, and now that it is
legally possible for that to happen, it does - the archaeologists respect
the confidentiality the detectorists want, in return for access to the
information they discover.

I
live near the site of the 1715 treasure fleet destruction and the
locals wait for hurricanes to dig up the sand dunes for them to make
detection easier.

[...]

Most of the things those people find would be lost forever if they didn't
do it.  That's comparable to beach-combing or sifting through land-slides.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

There are "treasure companies" that "own" what is found below the high
tide line, there is a very large structure/ship stationed off Vero
Beach every year that combs the offshore. My area is filled with the
guys who have a particular dune area that they have worked out as a
final resting spot for part of one or more of the ships. They wait for
hurricanes to do their moving of sand so they won't have competition.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090422/COLUMNISTS0401/904220302/0/SEVENDAYS

and



Hurricane unburies beach treasure, yields precious coins

The Orlando Sentinel, on Mon, Oct. 25, 2004

by RICH MCKAY

INDIALANTIC, Fla. - (KRT) - It is the stuff of pirate legends, but do
not waste your breath asking Joel Ruth on what stretch of Florida's
Treasure Coast he found his hoard of Spanish pieces of eight - waiting
to be scratched out of the sand with bare fingers and toes.

Treasure hunters guard their secrets.

Especially, if like Ruth, they have just found about 180 near-mint
silver coins worth more than $40,000.

To most Floridians, hurricane season is the time to board up windows
and dread the worst. But to professional and amateur treasure seekers,
it is the time to hit the beaches and hunt lost riches.

"It's why we're called the Treasure Coast," said Ruth, a bookish 52-
year-old marine archaeologist with an African parrot named Euclid who
has learned to squawk "Pieces o' eight."

It takes the big storms like Jeanne and Frances to rake several feet
of sand off the beaches and dunes and expose gold, silver and gems
sunk and scattered centuries ago.

But making a find takes more than walking the beaches with a metal
detector. What separates those who make a real find from the legions
of beachcombers is knowledge and patience, said Sir Robert F. Marx.

Marx is an underwater archaeologist and marine historian who was
knighted by both the Spanish and English crowns for his work,
including about 800 popular and scientific articles and about 60
books.

His colleague Ruth, for instance, has been keeping his eye on a
certain stretch of beach in Brevard County, Fla., for 20 years,
checking it every so often as the years go by, Marx said. He and Ruth
think the find is part of a sunken treasure fleet off Florida's
Atlantic coast.

But it took Jeanne to bring a slice of the shoreline back to where it
was in 1715, he said.

That is the year a famous Spanish treasure fleet of about a dozen
ships sunk in a summer hurricane, bloated with treasure headed for
Philip V of Spain, Marx said.

Captain-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla, commander of the flotilla
carrying gems, gold, silver and porcelain from China - hence the name
Plate Fleet - set sail in the late summer 289 years ago.

Under pressure from the king to bring treasure to boost a war-ravaged
economy, Ubilla set sail even though hurricane season had already
started. Leading with the Capitana, the fleet hugged Florida's
Atlantic coast, heading north in the hopes of catching the trade winds
of the Gulf Stream. With no more warning than a morning of steel-gray
skies, a tempest snapped the ships like matchsticks, a few survivors
would later tell.

Nautical records of salvage attempts and previous finds pointed to the
spot Ruth staked out to search. Others know the spot and have made
finds there, too.

The basic rules of treasure hunting on beaches include finders
keepers, but do not dig into the dunes or in protected areas.

Because riches go to those who are there first, "You have to be Johnny
on the spot," said Mitch King, vice president of the Treasure Coast
Archaeological Society.

"(Hurricane) Jeanne did more destruction than any storm has in years,"
King said. The last storm to yield finds like Ruth's happened on
Thanksgiving about two decades ago, he added. Treasure hunters still
whisper about it.

And you have to be quick, Ruth said, because the high tides right
after a storm often dump several feet of sand back on the same
beaches, leaving the heavy treasure well below the reach of most metal
detectors.

"You could be walking over a million dollars in coins and never know
it," said Ruth, who makes a living on salvage efforts and identifying
and restoring ancient coins.

He headed out with his metal detector about 8 a.m. Sept. 26, when
Jeanne's winds started slacking off. He knew the storm that brought
some of the worst destruction to Florida's coast could also yield the
most riches.

He would not say where he went other than "somewhere in Brevard." He
shimmied down to the beach from a place where there is access - and
knew right away it was a good spot. There was no modern trash - and
the waves had cut deep into the sand.

"I made a find almost immediately - a big green (piece of) eight," he
said.

It was green from age but was not worn or corroded, which told him the
coin spent most of the time deep under the protection of the sand -
making it far more valuable to collectors.

Ruth stayed for about four hours, filling his pockets with coins until
his batteries were about dead and the high tides' waves bashed him
against the sandy cliffs.

He went back the next day, but there was too much sand piled up. He
did not find a thing, other than modern rubbish.

He showed his find to Marx, who smiled with approval and the respect
of a fellow hunter. Although many marine archaeologists would call
them "plunderers," professional treasure hunters say they give more
discoveries to museums and make more historical finds because their
ventures pay for new searches a life in academics could not finance.

And where does Ruth find the coins? "I'm sworn to secrecy," Marx said.

But if another storm hits before hurricane season ends Nov. 30, he
will probably go back.

escrito por Alexandre às 17:02

.

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