The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) operating in the UK is seen as a model for recording portable finds. As Neil Faulkner in Current Archaeology noted,Metal-detectorists, for long treated as pariahs, have been brought into the fold, contributing their expertise and discoveries to national heritage by recording find-spots and bringing artefacts to local FLOs [Finds Liaison Officers] for identification and databasing. Not just detectorists: of 6,216 individuals offering finds for recording in 2006, more than a third were not detectorists but other members of the public.
However PAS funding has been frozen. Lord Renfrew, writing in a comment piece ("Lost or found?") for the Guardian (December 17, 2007), laid out the case for the continuation of the scheme,At the moment its 50 dedicated staff do not know whether they will still have a job after next March. If ever there was a frontline service such as this spending review was supposed to protect, this is it. It is ironic that this threat to its future should come just when the scheme is beginning to produce dividends in terms of research and has built up the trust of over 6,000 finders. All this could so easily be lost without adequate funding.
Metal-detectorists also feel outraged. One commented on Renfrew's piece,I could not agree more with Lord Renfrew. As a dedicated metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist, I have recorded all my finds with the PAS since I took up the hobby. The dedication and professionalism of the organisation's staff has been an inspiration.
If you would like to express your opinion follow the link here where you can vote in a straw poll, and, if you are a UK citizen, add your name to a Downing Street petition.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Protecting Portable Antiquities in the UK: A Financial Threat
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4 comments:
Thank you for bringing this important issue to the attention of the readers of the SAFE blog. The American Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association and the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild have already written UK authorities in support of the PAS. Hopefully, US based archaeological associations will do the same.
Sincerely,
Peter Tompa
The British minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism Margaret Hodge addressed the issues raised by campaigners:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2008-01-28a.6.1&s=speaker%3A10371#g6.4 It turns out that several fundamental misrepresentations have been made.
There was further discussion this week in a BBC Radio 4 interview with both the director of the PAS Roger Bland and Roy Clare, the Chief Executive of the MLA, [a copy is currently embedded in the Portable Antiquities website Blog http://www.finds.org.uk/wordpress/] Admiral Clare sets the record straight about the current situation and points out that a lot of the criticisms he and his staff have had to fend off is based on foundationless rumour.
An interesting development is the publication on a metal detecting site of what appears to be a leaked internal document intended for the British DCMS
http://ourpasthistory.com/md/pas_1.pdf If this is genuine and we look at what is proposed, it is difficult to see where the “national” status of the organization is actually "threatened" by the current situation.
Pending the results of the promised review of the PAS this summer, the concerns raised mainly by a small pressure group which has emerged in the British artefact collecting community do seem to be a little overblown. Perhaps we should see what the independent review actually states before announcing that 'the sky is falling'.
Paul Barford
Paul Barford's post has missed the point. The Portable Antiquities Scheme is an immensely successful project that is engaging thousands of new people in archaeology, and creating knowledge about our past. It is also seriously threatened. The massive, spontaneous support that followed British Archaeology's revelation that Roy Clare was thinking about removing the PAS central unit (BA Jan/Feb, published Dec 7 2007) reflects a justified fear that this unique scheme is endangered. BA stands by all it has printed: see update in BA Mar/Apr, out Feb 8. The threat has not yet gone.
Nobody has ever claimed the 'sky is falling in', just using our democratic right to lobby this tightfisted Government and its 'hatchet-esk' career civil servants!
What is important here is that enough people care about the PAS and its future that they are willing to stand up and be counted for it.
It's a shame that people in glass houses remain in other country's throwing stones, while others in the UK try to do their best to prevent an even greater catastrophe in creating a Medusa type scheme! If the Rear Admiral has his way and the PAS gets broken up it will end up with many regional heads and no cohesion that the Central Unit currently enables.
Well done Mike, from a very supportive detectorist & archaeology student from Bristol.
Peter Twinn, South Gloucs.
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