Flahavans makes excellent porridge
First off, Flahavans are from Waterford and this find was in Westmeath.
Second, if you want the actual best porridge get yourself some Kilbeggan (which are actually from Westmeath, funnily enough).
Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#12> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such r…
So much will never be found thanks to this law.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#13Parsing the title I thought it was going to be about an Irish museum that solved the mystery of bronze age collapse.
My excitement grew exponentially as the words went by, until it crashed at once.
Hopefully though the secrets of that collapse would be unveiled in the coming years.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#14> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such r…
From the end of the article:
> The NMI also wishes to remind the public that unregulated use of detection devices causes serious damage to Ireland’s archaeological heritage.
If you want to know more, the NMI have a detailed article explaining the rationale
https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/The-Law-on-...
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#15> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such r…
So much will never be found thanks to this law.
Random amateurs digging stuff up is next to useless from an archaeological perspective - once you've disturbed the earth and taken stuff out of the ground you've already destroyed so much contextual information.
Even professional trained archaeologists intentionally only excavate parts of sites when they know there's more to find because we expect there to be much better technology in the future.
Amateurs digging for artifacts are destroying knowledge, not discovering it.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#16Flahavans makes excellent porridge
First off, Flahavans are from Waterford and this find was in Westmeath. Second, if you want the actual best porridge get yourself some Kilbeggan (which are actually from Westmeath, funnily enough).
HN has a wonderful reputation for always finding an unexpected expert to comment - from nuclear physics to philosophy, pre-history to … porridge :-)
But we have buried the lede - Flahavens or not, is it water and salt, or is it milk?
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#17> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such r…
These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it.
Antiquities laws are generally designed to make antiquities "visible" to the state while also giving authorities teeth if they need to go after these sorts of people. To do that, there's a whole host of laws and conventions that require reporting virtually everything and align the financial incentives/penalties to ensure valuations on any antiquities discovered are as reasonably accurate as possible. It makes things a little inconvenient for the hobbyists, but I personally find that a reasonable tradeoff given the damage that otherwise occurs.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#18> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such r…
These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the…
>>These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it.
That doesn't seem to happen in England, which allows metal detecting.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just that the discovery was missing something called context in archaeology. Where they were found geographically, the stratigraphy such as the dirt it was found in and the layers around it, where it was found in relation to the nearest settlement, what kinds of animal bones were found in the same general area, and so on. Archaeologists are meticulous about recording these little details because every any one of them…
What would be a supernatural reason then? Is there some context in archeology that is labeled as supernatural that's different from ritualistic context? And what other things lie in the range between those two?
Ritualistic is what archaeologists call everything when they can't tell what it's there for, but it was clearly there for a reason.
It sounds like it means religious, but it's more general than that.
Re: Irish museum solves mystery of Bronze Age axe heads delivered in porridge box
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the…
>>These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at t…
Effectively the same thing applies in the UK. Intentionally searching for these kinds of objects requires an archaeological excavation permit. Unintentionally finding one requires reporting it.