Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Part of Viking Hoard Stolen by Detectorists. |
Two metal detectorists stole a £3m Viking hoard that experts say has the potential to "rewrite history".
George Powell and Layton Davies dug up about 300 coins in a field in Eye, near Leominster, Herefordshire, in 2015.
They did not declare the 1,100-year-old find, said to be one of the biggest to date, and instead sold it to dealers.
They were convicted of theft and concealing their find. Coin sellers Simon Wicks and Paul Wells were also convicted on the concealment charge.
Here is the link for more about that. (Thanks to William K for the link.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-50461860
I hope you'll read the rest of the article, but today I wanted to comment on some of the statements and issues raised by in the article.
First and foremost, I want to say that the dectectorists made the wrong decision by deciding to conceal their find and sell it for whatever they could get on the market. They did the wrong thing and will pay the price. Their actions also hurt the hobby and will give those who are against metal detecting ammunition to blast and additionally regulate the hobby. The detectorists would have been better off to properly report the find. They would have been compensated for the objects and would have received additional opportunities and been able to share in the process of discovery and knowledge produced by the finds instead of becoming criminals.
All that said, I believe that the claims made the archaeologists are, as is commonly the case, exaggerated. Can you really rewrite history based upon a group of related coins like that? I don't think so. My standards are more demanding. Are they absolutely sure about their conclusions? I believe it would take more than one grouping of coins showing something to which there was previously no evidence.
When you watch the video you will see that they show a lot of pictures of the treasure, including the coins and gold, however the video barely goes into the evidence and conclusions. Why is that? Why is the newly rewritten history and the evidence not featured? I'm afraid the fact is that the "new" knowledge ( if it qualifies as such ) is tenuous at best, being based upon a surprising juxtaposition of two kings on one group of coins - the one king being unknown to the vast majority of the people on this earth. While the new knowledge might seem monumental to those few people who make their livelihood out of trivia that most others would never encounter in a lifetime, how earth shattering is the conclusion if it is found to be correct? If this is the only evidence of the newly rewritten history, I'm still skeptical. I'm sure there are other possible conclusions that should be considered.
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A few days ago I mentioned a book I was reading. I just finished it and highly recommend it to anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of history, culture and the human condition. The book is The Grandissimes, by George W. Cable.
George Washington Cable was born in 1844 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to George W. Cable, Sr., and Rebecca Boardman Cable; his parents were wealthy slaveholders, members of the Presbyterian Church and of New Orleans society, whose families had moved there after the Louisiana Purchase
In 1880, Cable published his first novel, The Grandissimes, A story of creole life portraying multiracial member and different classes of society in the early 1800s shortly after the Louisianna Purchase. It had first been serialized in Scribner's. The plot follows the adventures and romances of several members of the Grandissime family, a French Creole family with mixed-race members. He used this historical romance as a way to explore society and its racial injustice, as he addressed European Creoles, the mixed-race class, placage, slavery and lynchings, In the same year, the United States Census Bureau commissioned Cable to write a "historical sketch" of pre-Civil War New Orleans for a special section of the 10th United States Census' "Social statistics of cities". He submitted a well-researched 313-page history, which was greatly reduced for publication in 1884. Source: wikipedia.
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The recently concluded Sedwick auction realized over $2.3 million dollars.
You can now consign for the March 2020 auction.
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| Minions. |
The impeachment hearings could provide the basis for a new Minion movie in which Sondland, Taylor and Yavonovich join Bob in Revenge of the Minions.
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It is a rainy Sunday morning. The high tides are nice and high, but the surf is small.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
