More on Death Threats from Portable Antiquities Society

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Regarding his threats sent to my blog ('Portable Antiquities Society Makes Death Threats'), the head of the Portable Antiquities Society has again contacted me explaining:

when you make libellous remarks about someone, you really don’t know who you are dealing with. I have always been known as a nasty piece of work, and people who have caused me trouble usually pay a high price.

It seems quite a lot of UK metal detectorists have not the foggiest idea what libel actually is. Nobody has made any libellous comments about the Society or its creator, and the law is entirely clear what recourse the injured party has if they allege that they have been libelled.

That many metal detectorists are "nasty pieces of work" is amply confirmed by what they themselves say about what colleagues have threatened or done in various circumstances and what we hear from PAS staff when Roger Bland is not listening and other UK archaeologists who have confronted them (most avoid doing so). Mr Taylor has a "reputation" and its not the first time this individual has been mentioned on the pages of this blog. So yes I think we all get a fairly good idea what kind of person we are dealing with from the words of his own mouth. There are many like him in the ranks of British metal detecting. Join a forum or two yourselves and take a look at what you see.

We might ask why the Mr Taylor thinks I am "causing him trouble" by looking at the material he himself posts on the internet. Like everybody else, I have every right to look at what is made available in the public domain and every right to express my opinion about it. Certainly much more right than Mr Taylor has threatening anyone at all over it.

Incidents like this brought out into the open show that it really is about time the public in Britain woke up to just what kind of people are among those going out in the fields onto archaeological sites with metal detectors either within or outside the law and taking away unsustainably large numbers of archaeological finds for entertainment and profit.