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trentsands
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« Reply #15 on: September 25, 2009, 05:35:34 PM » |
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A huge round of applause for Mr Terry Herbert, the metal detectorist and finder, who did the right and ethical thing of informing the Portable Antiquities Scheme staff.
Many a different person would have pawed it out of the ground and flogged it on eBay.
Well under English law he does get to sell it and keep the money, right? I think it is just that the museums get the first right to bid. Or is that wrong? Nope, it's treasure trove, it belongs to the Crown. The Crown will pay a price determined by a valuation committee (which will be pretty much the market price) and then it can be sold on. I'll also be very surprised if it isn't subject to an export restriction. The furthest from Staffordshire it'll be going will be Great Russell Street. The news reports actually say what Kedves just said. The profits for sale of the times are split between the finder and the owner of the property. |
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"In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo."
-- T.S. Eliot
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present_mirth
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« Reply #16 on: September 25, 2009, 06:41:02 PM » |
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I showed the images to my Brit Lit students this morning. One section was like, "yeah, whatever," but the students in the other section got very excited and wanted to know exactly where it was found, and whether the guy who found it would get rich, and whether it was in a box or case or just buried in the earth, and whether this meant Beowulf was real. I like that section; they make me happy.
It's nice that the finder does get the money, after all -- I was under the impression that the government took all, so I'll have to correct that on Monday.
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wegie
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« Reply #17 on: September 25, 2009, 06:57:26 PM » |
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It's nice that the finder does get the money, after all -- I was under the impression that the government took all, so I'll have to correct that on Monday.
Originally, the Crown could take all the stuff and do whatever it wanted with it. In practice (and I think there may have been a change in the law as well), the finder gets the proceeds. In theory, the finds can go to the open market. In practice, these pieces aren't leaving the UK. The finder and the farm owner will get a good price, but it won't be quite as much as if the Getty and the Met got into a bidding war. |
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llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 22,211
Whither Canada?
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« Reply #18 on: September 25, 2009, 07:03:06 PM » |
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A huge round of applause for Mr Terry Herbert, the metal detectorist and finder, who did the right and ethical thing of informing the Portable Antiquities Scheme staff.
Many a different person would have pawed it out of the ground and flogged it on eBay.
Well under English law he does get to sell it and keep the money, right? I think it is just that the museums get the first right to bid. Or is that wrong? Nope, it's treasure trove, it belongs to the Crown. The Crown will pay a price determined by a valuation committee (which will be pretty much the market price) and then it can be sold on. I'll also be very surprised if it isn't subject to an export restriction. The furthest from Staffordshire it'll be going will be Great Russell Street. Works for me. If the British Museum gets it, I'll get to see it :) |
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Because, you know, that stuff on the syllabus is like, in writing, and there are so many ways you can, like, read that, but when the guys who sit by you in class, like, you know, must know what's really going on, right? -- AmLitHist, channelling student
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wegie
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« Reply #19 on: September 25, 2009, 07:08:06 PM » |
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The furthest from Staffordshire it'll be going will be Great Russell Street.
Works for me. If the British Museum gets it, I'll get to see it :) We can but hope that they display it better than they do the Sutton Hoo treasure. Last time I was there I wanted to take an axe to the whole display. |
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llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 22,211
Whither Canada?
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« Reply #20 on: September 25, 2009, 07:12:03 PM » |
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The furthest from Staffordshire it'll be going will be Great Russell Street.
Works for me. If the British Museum gets it, I'll get to see it :) We can but hope that they display it better than they do the Sutton Hoo treasure. Last time I was there I wanted to take an axe to the whole display. It was awfully stiff, wasn't it? The display setup, I mean. |
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Because, you know, that stuff on the syllabus is like, in writing, and there are so many ways you can, like, read that, but when the guys who sit by you in class, like, you know, must know what's really going on, right? -- AmLitHist, channelling student
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sad_goat
Nothin' but love for ya
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 2,619
Requiring tolerance from the tolerant every day.
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« Reply #21 on: September 27, 2009, 03:26:20 PM » |
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In other words, it is a moral and philosophical question, not a question of details.
...it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. - James Madison |
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jacaranda_
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« Reply #22 on: September 27, 2009, 04:31:06 PM » |
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Holy mackerel: TWO discoveries like this in a single summer? |
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llanfair
Village idiot and Very
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 22,211
Whither Canada?
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« Reply #23 on: September 27, 2009, 06:47:20 PM » |
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Unbelievable! It's a good year for the Anglo-Saxons and their scholars.
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Because, you know, that stuff on the syllabus is like, in writing, and there are so many ways you can, like, read that, but when the guys who sit by you in class, like, you know, must know what's really going on, right? -- AmLitHist, channelling student
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_touchedbyanoodle_
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« Reply #24 on: September 27, 2009, 07:04:16 PM » |
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Ooo! The flickr album is gorgeous! I'm tickled pink by this find as well, just as a voyeur. What good luck! What gorgeous artifacts.
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"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist." -George Carlin
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t_r_b
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« Reply #25 on: September 27, 2009, 07:36:17 PM » |
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Unbelievable! It's a good year for the Anglo-Saxons and their scholars.
Somewhere, a long-dead Anglo-Saxon is muttering to himself, "so that's where I left it!" |
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If you want to be zen, then stay in the freaking moment.
A lot of the people posting on this thread need to go out and get kohlrabi.
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wegie
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« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2009, 04:48:51 AM » |
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Unbelievable! It's a good year for the Anglo-Saxons and their scholars.
I wouldn't go so far as to say unbelievable, mainly because it's impossible to move in England without hitting something medieval, Saxon or even earlier. The little part of Hampshire I'm from has: four or five known Saxon graveyards, three Iron Age ring-ditch systems (there's an even better one a few miles up the valley), a few barrows and tumuli, a couple of Roman farm/villa complexes (not very good ones), six Saxon villages/hamlets, and five churches that mainly date from before 1400 (including one that's late Saxon). And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head! |
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galactic_hedgehog
Procrastinating, Python-quoting, Blue Blazer-drinking, chocolate-chip cookie-eating, Pastafarian, Not So
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 17,915
Mind Ninja
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« Reply #27 on: September 28, 2009, 07:24:41 AM » |
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The furthest from Staffordshire it'll be going will be Great Russell Street.
Works for me. If the British Museum gets it, I'll get to see it :) We can but hope that they display it better than they do the Sutton Hoo treasure. Last time I was there I wanted to take an axe to the whole display. It was awfully stiff, wasn't it? The display setup, I mean. It's been a while (7?) years, but I don't remember Sutton Hoo being all that bad. Maybe it was because of our tour guide. We were visiting friends who live in the area and their son (I guess he was 10 or 11 at the time) took us around and showed us everything. He loved the place was incredibly eager to show it off. |
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"A pun is primâ facie an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Hedgie loves to read. |
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jacaranda_
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« Reply #28 on: September 28, 2009, 09:15:09 AM » |
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Unbelievable! It's a good year for the Anglo-Saxons and their scholars.
I wouldn't go so far as to say unbelievable, mainly because it's impossible to move in England without hitting something medieval, Saxon or even earlier. The little part of Hampshire I'm from has: four or five known Saxon graveyards, three Iron Age ring-ditch systems (there's an even better one a few miles up the valley), a few barrows and tumuli, a couple of Roman farm/villa complexes (not very good ones), six Saxon villages/hamlets, and five churches that mainly date from before 1400 (including one that's late Saxon). And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head! Well, this was my next question. The Staffordshire find has clearly gotten more high-profile attention -- the NYT didn't bother to report the Kent graves. So is it the quality and unusual nature of the artifacts discovered in Staffordshire that makes this find much more remarkable? Both for the material value of the items and the cultural information that scholars will be able to derive from them? It sounds like perhaps what was found in the Kent graves is, well, incredibly old, but also familiar stuff (beads, chain mail, swords). Also, amusing note at the bottom of the article sad_goat posted: apparently the chain mail and sword pictured are replicas. Oops. |
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wegie
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« Reply #29 on: September 28, 2009, 11:01:34 AM » |
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Unbelievable! It's a good year for the Anglo-Saxons and their scholars.
I wouldn't go so far as to say unbelievable, mainly because it's impossible to move in England without hitting something medieval, Saxon or even earlier. The little part of Hampshire I'm from has: four or five known Saxon graveyards, three Iron Age ring-ditch systems (there's an even better one a few miles up the valley), a few barrows and tumuli, a couple of Roman farm/villa complexes (not very good ones), six Saxon villages/hamlets, and five churches that mainly date from before 1400 (including one that's late Saxon). And that's just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head! Well, this was my next question. The Staffordshire find has clearly gotten more high-profile attention -- the NYT didn't bother to report the Kent graves. So is it the quality and unusual nature of the artifacts discovered in Staffordshire that makes this find much more remarkable? Both for the material value of the items and the cultural information that scholars will be able to derive from them? It sounds like perhaps what was found in the Kent graves is, well, incredibly old, but also familiar stuff (beads, chain mail, swords). Yup. The point about the Staffordshire hoard is both the extremely good quality <drools again over the gripping beasts in garnet> and the sheer quantity of of it. Sutton Hoo, which is the richest burial ever found in Anglo-Saxon England, had about a kilo of gold in the burial, the King of Bling had a decent amount of gold, but the Staffordshire hoard has five kilos! It must have been worth an absolute fortune at the time that it was cached. The other interesting point about the Staffordshire haord is that it isn't a burial (so far as has been reported). So, whilst it's obviously an assemblage with some specific ritual overtones (it's mainly from swords and helmets), it's not got the "let's show how great and powerful this man is to the gods" overtones that burial assemblages often posess. Also, because it's mainly one type of artifact, you then also have to think about what that means for the overall levels of wealth distribution within the society. If this person (whether it's Penda, one of the other Kings of Mercia, a house carl or whoever) can end up with a hoard of 80 gold pommel tops, somewhere out there are 80 warriors who could afford such decorations, which suddenly makes 7th/8th century CE England a *lot* wealthier place than it was last week. |
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