A Tale of Two Treasures

Two successive posts on The History Blog point out the importance of antiquities law.

First, Ritually bent sword from Bronze Age/Iron Age transition found in Denmark. The sword is above.

Ritual deposits including a ritually bent sword have been discovered in a bog near Veksø northwest of Copenhagen, Denmark. The small cache of objects date to the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, around 500 B.C., and the sword actually incarnates the transition, being made of bronze with iron rivets.

They were discovered by Claus Falsby on his first outing with a metal detector. He contacted museum organization ROMU which manages archaeological responsibilities for central and western Zealand. ROMU archaeologists immediately went to the site and excavated it, discovering additional objects. In total, the cache now consisted of the bronze sword with iron rivets in the handle sinuously bent into a s-curve, two small bronze axes (known as celts), two or three large ankle bangles called vulrings, a fragment of a large fibula and an object of unknown purpose.

Close-up of the black showing the herringbone pattern created in the forging process; the folding was done to get the right mix of iron and carbon in the steel.

Second, Nationally important Bronze Age hoard recovered from looters:

A late Bronze Age (ca. 950–780/740 B.C.) hoard of national importance found near Gryfino in Poland’s West Pomeranian Voivodeship has been rescued by authorities after it was illegally excavated. Anonymous individuals sent pictures of the objects to each other before they were emailed to the Provincial Conservator of Monuments in Szczecin who then called the police.  . . .

The hoard contains more than 100 objects, 73 of them remarkably large. It includes more than 30 bronze neck rings, weapons, shield bosses, jewelry, phalerae (metal discs) from horse harnesses, silver spikes, the handle of a vessel, sickles and spearheads. Three of the objects are of national importance, unique on the archaeological record of Poland: a brooch made of circular hoops with decorated sheet-metal domes, a long pin and the axe which were not locally made and came to Gryfino from southcentral Europe, probably the Alpine region. The axe socket contains remnants of wood from the haft, which will give archaeologists the opportunity to radiocarbon date the axe head and determine what kind of wood it was mounted to.

The finder or finders used a metal detector but Polish law regulates their use to prevent exactly this kind of shenanigan, and the looters obviously did not have the necessary permits to conduct a metal detector search. That in itself is an indictable offense, but to add insult to injury, it’s clear from the photographs that they destroyed at least one clay container in which the treasure had been buried 3,000 or so years ago and ran roughshod over the archaeological context, acts punishably by a term of up to eight years in prison.

What is the difference between the collegial enterprise described for Denmark and the illegal "shenanigans" in Poland? National law.

In Denmark, Britain and Norway (at least) the authorities work with metal detectorists and property owners and reward them for bringing their finds to the government's attention. In Italy, and, it seems from this article, Poland, the authorities ban amateur archaeology and prosecute the people who do it. As a result, the things they find simply disappear, unless they are foolish enough to brag on Facebook about it.