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Recent Archaeological Discoveries (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Rocky



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I have a question. What are the rules regarding compensation if you dig up treasure in someone else's backyard in Britain?

Suppose Hatty digs up stuff in Mick's backyard that the government then declares as treasure. When the government buys the treasure to put in a museam, does the government give half of the money to Hatty and half to Mick, or does Mick decide how much Hatty gets?

I was wondering because the guy that discovered the Mercian treasure in his friend's backyard is going to split the proceeds 50/50 with his friend. Does the government require this? Normally, the property owner would just give nothing, or a token amount, to the discoverer, and lose the friendship rather than the money.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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As I understand it, in the case of Treasure Trove the finder is paid a fee by the state for finding it and that fee is always 100% (a weird way of saying you keep it but it preserves the proprieties). But non-Treasure Trove (ie stuff that is just mislaid rather than deliberately buried) has to be handed in at the police station, just like any ten pound note you find on the tube. In Britain, finders is not keepers but a branch of larceny. There are no rules as to how old 'the ten pound note' might be. However, if it is not claimed by the owner, and Anglo-Saxon property may well not be, the finder normally gets to keep it (in the case of the ten pound note) but the state decides how much you should be rewarded in the case of Anglo-Saxon dropsies (dunno what that is in practice).

In the case of treasure found on private land (as I understand it) everything belongs to the landowner (including the 100% reward for finding it) just as all (other) mineral rights do in this wondrous property-driven democracy of ours. That is why treasure-hunters a) arrange an a priori divvy-up rate with the landowner before embarking on a treasure hunt or b) do the whole thing secretly under the cover of darkness and sell anything they find on the black market.
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Grant



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In the case of treasure found on private land (as I understand it) everything belongs to the landowner (including the 100% reward for finding it) just as all (other) mineral rights do in this wondrous property-driven democracy of ours.


But if you find oil it's not yours. That belongs to the state.
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Mick Harper
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An interesting exception (if true). I presume it doesn't apply to coal (all those coal-owning brutes smashing the miners) but has the Court ruled what is coal and what is oil (there are intermediates)? More on the rationale of this presumably very modern rule, please.
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Ishmael


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Rocky wrote:
...the guy that discovered the Mercian treasure in his friend's backyard...


Definitely placing odds on this being fake.

I would like to know the final paying price vs. raw value of the gold.
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Grant



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The ownership of oil and gas within the land area of Great Britain was vested in the Crown by the Petroleum (Production) Act 1934. The Continental Shelf Act 1964 applied the provisions of the 1934 Act to the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) outside territorial waters (see above). The Department of Trade and Industry grants licences to explore for and exploit all oil and gas resources.


http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/planning/legislation/uk_minown.html

And if you find gold, you'll probably have to give it to the Queen.

I wonder if we would have discovered more onshore oil if landowners actually owned it.
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Mick Harper
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I wonder if we would have discovered more onshore oil if landowners actually owned it.

I am sure Ishmael will have something to say on this but, from memory, Britain's largest onshore oilfield did arise from private wildcatting on Brownsea Island (where the Boy Scouts started though I don't think there is any connection). Reading the piece Grant has given us, it would seem that oil reserves were nationalised at the same time as the coal ones in 1947 (and never privatised when the industries were!)

One thing to point out is that most of us would be outraged at the thought of "nodding donkies" littering the countryside, Texas-style, and yet how quickly we have got used to wind turbines littering the countryside. By the way, THOBR claims that oil occurs randomly under ten per cent of the earth's surface so it would probably pay ten of you to club together and start prospecting in your backgardens. Royalties to the AEL, please.
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Grant



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Definitely placing odds on this being fake.


It's interesting to play with the odds about this.
Let's assume that most people who try treasure hunting give it up after a few weeks (it must be bloody boring). A small percentage try for six months. A tiny, tiny number do it for years. That should mean that most treasure hunting is done by people who have just started out. Most lucky finds should be made by relative beginners.

But my memory is that whenever anything is dug up of great value, it's always by a treasure hunter of long standing. And how often is it discovered just inches under the ground in a ploughed field? This establishes in common law that it belongs to the finder as there was clearly no intention to recover it later. But these ploughed fields must have been cleared of stones for decades, and mostly by hand.

And anyone who has been sifting through mud for years is clearly very focused on the idea of getting rich.

5kg of gold would cost about 170,000 dollars, but we are told this most recent find will be worth at least 1.6 million dollars. It's also fairly easy to buy pure gold.

I'm not saying that any particular find is a fake, but I wonder if the experts seriously consider this possibility.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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A total of 1,345 items have been examined by experts, although the list includes 56 clods of earth which have been X-rayed and are known to contain further metal artefacts. This means the total number of items found is likely to rise to about 1,500.

I'll tell you what.... if this lot is fake; you have to admire the forger's dedication.

If it was me, I would just knock up half a dozen, big, expensive headliners.... not zillions of tiny make-weights.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Grant wrote:
I'm not saying that any particular find is a fake, but I wonder if the experts seriously consider this possibility.


They consider the possibility that it is fake but academics have an interest in concluding the treasure is real as they are desperate for data. It needs objective analysis but the only folks qualified to analyze it are anything but objective.

Course, once we all realize that the history books are completely bogus, we will be able to toss out every artifact that accords with them. Hopefully, we will then still have held on to a few of the anomalous pieces that presently have no value.
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Rocky



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Ishmael wrote:
Rocky wrote:
...the guy that discovered the Mercian treasure in his friend's backyard...


Definitely placing odds on this being fake.

I would like to know the final paying price vs. raw value of the gold.


Terry Herbert, who found it on farmland using a metal detector, said it "was what metal detectorists dream of". It may take more than a year for it to be valued. Five kilograms of gold and 2.5kg of silver, 1500 pieces in total and far more than the 1.5kg of gold found at Sutton Hoo in 1939. It's going to be valued and the money passed on to the finder and the landowner, who are friends. The hoard includes sword pommel caps and hilt shields inlaid with gems. It is almost all weapon fittings, and no jewellery, and they're guessing its value is in the seven figures.


The report of this find comes just weeks after the news of 10,000 Roman coins in neighbouring Shropshire being discovered, as well as news of the Vale of York hoard being purchased by the British Museum for over £1 million. So it'd appear that owning a metal detector could be a worthy investment! Terry Herbert, the amateur treasure hunter who lives alone in his council flat, claiming disability benefits, now stands to claim a share of at least a £1 million finder's reward as local museums raise funds to keep the hoard in the county.


Some of the treasure had Latin inscriptions on it. Has anyone here learned Latin and Anglo-Saxon? Which one is easier to learn?

I learned a tiny bit of Latin once, and it was easier to learn than trying to learn French.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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The bigger sniff I get of this, the more it stinks.

Claims disability benefits eh?

This is a massive forgery. But then again, it's just one of hundreds. I'm willing to bet there's simply no such thing as a genuine "Roman" or "Anglo Saxon" artifact in all of Britain.
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Mick Harper
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academics have an interest in concluding the treasure is real as they are desperate for data.

This is of central importance to AE. And it works both ways. In data-poor areas (like pre- and Ancient History) what there is is carefully hoarded and tends to produce erroneous theories because such little 'truth' allows so much academic malarkey.

In data-rich areas like linguistics and biology, erroneous theories force practitioners to concentrate on data-poor areas! Hence linguists concentrate on ancient, dead languages and biologists concentrate on extinct, fossilised animals because studying presently spoken languages and presently living animals would not support their respective paradigm beliefs.

PS There is no chance that the Anglo-Saxon hoard is a forgery because a) specialists do not lack Anglo-Saxon hoards and b) as Chad points out, no forger is going to forge 1500 pieces. However, it would be advantageous to look at Schliemann's finds and ask, "How many archaeological finds are like this ie a single 'set'?" And it will probably turn out that yet another one-in-several-thousand coincidences will have to be multiplied in to his overall record.

PPS King Tut's discovery is slightly different in that it came at the end of a long process of discovery (suspiciously close to the end, some might say). And of course Chad's Law also applies: would Carter or his backers have produced quite so many forgeries all together? It would be the Forgery of the Century!
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Mick Harper
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Claims disability benefits eh. The bigger sniff I get of this, the more it stinks. ?

Wrong way round, Ishmael. This supports his case because now he will be prosecuted for claiming disability benefit when he was self-confessedly capable of tramping around fields all day. Let them pick mangle-wurzels! Also he will now lose all his future benefits since claimants are only allowed seven thousand five hundred pounds of savings.

I know all these things because I am myself a... a .... polymath.
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Ishmael


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I'm not convinced by your counter claims Mick. Whoever forged this would be an expert working with the people involved and, as such, would provide the "skeptics" with what they would be looking for to support the claim.

There just seems to me to be a disproportionate amount of ancient gold dug up, as opposed to ancient cast-iron. Now what was more common?
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