Prepare another cross, here is another detectorist. Although I got used to negative comments on detectorists, this thread really infuriated me... The original article on Jordan's find did not hint at any irresponcible behaviour from his side...
I do understand the comments to some extent, since I too love history and hate to see our heritage be destroyed, stolen damaged etc.
Being a Dutch detectorist in Germany with a lot of detectorist friends there and in the Netherlands, I know how hard it is to be accepted by archeologists, mainly because we are divided into two groups by them:
The ones that plunder archeological sites at night, sell their finds to foreign private collectors making big amounts of money, causing archeological artefacts to be lost for the public forever.
and the ones that work together under the supervision of archeologists.
The fact is that most detectorists don't do anything illegal, but also not cooperate closely with archeologists, not because they don't want to, but because archeologists tend to put them in the criminal corner or make cooperation very very hard by putting up many bureaucratic obstacles.
As for the finds that the average detectorist makes... they are not spectaculair and will not make you rich. Where do we find them? mainly on farmland, which is plowed and fertilised every year, which causes the main load of our finds to be shredded to pieces or badly corroded because of the accidity levels of the soil.
In Hessen (DE) where I live now, I (finally!!!) have a permit which allows me to detect on farmland (not on undisturbed soils like forest) with known archeological value. This because the archeologists in this Bundesland have realized that not the detectorist, but the farmer plowing might be the biggest threat to OUR heritage. By recording single finds they can still recontruct the historical importance of certain areas and if need be just like in Jordan's case do an emergency dig.
In other parts of Germany there is a total ban on detecting... Some of you might think this is good, but in fact it does not prevent the crimal detectorist to do his detecting at archeological sites and needlessly criminalizes detectorists that otherwise would have reported their finds, but now can not.
Just like re-enactors we can provide new insights in our peoples pasts, just like re-enactors most of us take our hobby very seriously, not like re-enactors, their are groups of people with a detector that ruine our good name.
Now let's see some pictures of this great find!!!