Get on with it...

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"Here’s a pic of Mr Barford enjoying a well-earned beer" saith Candice, but no, wait ("This is Mr Barford - Part 1")...

"a correspondent tells me that the man in the picture to the left with his back to us is Mr Barford. Well, it looks possible and, of course, we know Mr Barford is the master of misinformation".

And Candice is obviously master of nowt. It beats me how he can see that the person shown in a photo with his back to the camera behind another person is "enjoying a well-earned beer" like the good-looking guy relaxing in the centre of the shot. Or that anyone can recognise the back of somebody's head (or is it the butt which was recognised?). What does he mean by "it looks possible"?

Perhaps the person being portrayed by the photographer is the other one facing the camera, but on the right of the guy in the centre of the photo? Stocky come-and-fight me stance and archie sweater, is that not the blogger in question? He looks like the sort of person who'd be rude about collectors doesn't he? Though why would Candice say that this person is "enjoying a well-earned beer" when he is not?Pathetic. Maybe we could cut the crap and instead of simply suggesting "of course, we know Mr Barford is the master of misinformation", Candice could get on with discussing the alleged distortions in what I say about portable antiquity collecting. Can he do that? I think we are all beginning to have our doubts about that.
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There's Fieldwork and there's Fieldwork: What does Candy Know about it?

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"Candice Jarman" says 'she' is a secretary who has "metal detectorist" friends and is aided by the members of the Yahoo so-called "responsible collecting" forum run by Tim Haines. Both are apparently aiding and encouraging her to write a "Paul Barford - Heritage - The Truth" blog. The author calls me “the Embarrassment of antiquities conservation” and adds: "don’t his supporters realise that he convinces no-one and just damages their cause by his strident, crass, dismissive posts rubbishing all those who dare to voice an alternative view". So she has set out to try and "rubbish" what she says are "misrepresentations of the truth", "distortions of the facts" to further an "anti-detecting, anti-collecting, anti-PAS agenda". She has not got very far however with that task, dithering about trying to find photographs of "what Paul Barford looks like" - as if it mattered to my ability to write about no-questions-asked collecting.

One might wonder about a secretary's ability to be able to address any of the archaeological issues I raise, given her all-too-apparent total lack of any knowledge about the discipline. This is clearly revealed by 'her' comment to one of the photos that she has obviously been told shows me [I suspect I know by whom, and that person has never met me either]:

Here is another picture of Mr Barford doing archaeology it seems. The public kept at a respectful distance.....

Regardless of who is visible in the photo, what is actually shown is an exhumation to obtain a DNA sample carried out in 1998 in central Poland by an experienced forensic anthropological team from the United States. It was carried out under and in full compliance with a licence issued by the Polish Church and all relevant local legislation, the archaeologists are there as support to the anthropologists. The aim was not the full archaeological excavation of a grave of 1864, and neither was I in charge of this project. If I had been, there would have been more than a police-tape barrier, but screens as is usual in such exhumations, out of respect for the deceased. In this case however the public could only see the outside of the vault not what was hidden deep in its dark interior. Forensic exhumations of human remains - and especially not those in the state these were - are not places for gawkers. I think if she knew anything about it at all, Ms Jarman would be aware that a nineteenth century burial ground clearance or murder scene investigation in even in Great Britain is not a ghoulish spectacle they sell tickets for gawkers and bystanders to go and watch.

So yes, in any exhumation of this nature, the public would be kept at a truly respectful distance.*

Not like the metal detecting page I was reading on Thursday written by somebody 'Candice' may even know (as it was from near where 'she' says she lives), where the writer is laughing about the fragments of a human skull shown - that his detecting mate had dug roughly through a human skeleton "thinking it was a dog". Now that is what I call really "disturbing the dead" and grave robbing - they even took the skull home. What "fun", eh Candy? What a wonderful advertisement for "responsible" artefact hunting in the UK.

[*] Note: the photo she uses was taken with a long focal length lens and (among other things) in order to give the team room to work, the distance between the barrier and open vault was in fact greater than it appears.
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SO? Barford Drinks Beer, is that a Sin Candice? Don't metal Detectorists Drink Beer then?

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Well Candice Jarman really takes the biscuit. In her latest effort to avoid addressing the various cultural property issues raised in my blog ("This is Mr Barford - Part 1" ), the solicitor's secretary now shows some 1998 photos of me, probably with the intention of making it easier for the criminal element to identify me next time I am involved in an antiquities 'sting'. As for the snide comment:

"Here’s a pic of Mr Barford enjoying a well-earned beer (it must be thirsty work disturbing the dead) [...] we suspect he is plumper and greyer (even baldier) now.

There are of course no "dead" to disturb in a flying school which is where her photo was taken.

What is it with you people? When are we going to see you discussing issues of merit instead of the superficial peripheral ones?

Buffy gets a Badger Blessing

Somebody points the readers of an archaeology forum to a blog which he claims to be „bitingly funny” quirky deconstructionism. Sadly the link turns out only to be his metal detecting mate (“Steve Welton’s”) Buffy blog which despite its title ["paul-barford-blog-response"] dismally fails to be a “response” to the portable antiquity issues I raise on my other blog.

The archaeology forum owner who thus tries to boost his metal detecting mate’s falling viewer figures claims that like me he is in some way concerned about what he calls “looting”, but like his pal Buffy does not agree with my “method of delivery and finger pointing” because that is “rather less agreeable in many posts”. Mr Connolly is a “pat-em-on-ther-head “,“hail-good-fellow-show-us-what-you’ve-got” advocate, and then he wonders why I say that he is pro-collecting.

Connolly writes, apparently about me:

As I said about Water Newton... some folk do, others write about what people should do without ever doing anything constructive. (that I can see)

I think that is what he must have said to the IFA when he (at the time a member of their Council) was called to explain himself over his participation in a commercial artefact hunting rally which – several people tried unsuccessfully to warn him – was (in the manner he did it) against the IFA Code of Practice. Now he is no longer in the IFA and trying to set up a parallel “Federation”. It seems to me that when dealing with artefact collecting, especially carried out as a commercial enterprise, there are some very slippery ethical issues involved for the serious archaeologist in "doing" anything in "partnership" with them.

Well, Mr Connolly can carry on patting artefact hunters on the head and cajoling them into showing him some of what they’ve found and taken from the archaeological record. What I have “done” in another area however is more than he, and that is to write with Nigel Swift a fairly detailed and closely referenced book placing in the public eye the other side of the argument and setting UK metal detecting and the associated ethical and practical issues in a wider archaeological and conservation setting.

Mr Connolly may count that as “not constructive”, he may call it “deconstructive”, but personally I think taken as a whole it is rather “instructive” about how shallow and provincial the arguments used by insular pro-artefact-collecting archaeologists like Connolly actually are. I think it says a lot more about the ideological and methodological crisis of British archaeology as anything.

It seems to me that what people sharing Connolly’s credo on artefact hunting and collecting will have to “do” after it comes out is to find some good and coherent arguments against ours, and frankly the kind of derivative ad hominem “response” that an anonymous half-wit metal detecting mouse fetishist is capable of coming up with is not going to help them.

[Connolly warns himself (!) "expect a stiff reply", well here it is, but only on my metal detecting matters ghetto blog which is where mentions of such metalista-trivia belong].

Buffy's kind informant

Over on his hate-blog, Buffy the cowardly anonymous critic says: Someone kindly pointed me in the direction of a Paul M Barford web article re an exhumation".

Well, I wonder who that could have been and whether they really were being "kind"? I do remember having a discussion over this with a certain Scottish archaeologist who insulted the American team that carried out this work, and refused to apologise. Far be it for me to suggest though that he might be the one who is now helping "Buffy" in his scribblings.

Recording, but what?

“I should point out I am not a pro-collecting archaeologist. I am a pro recording archaeologist” protests Scottish professional archaeologist David Connolly (“purveyor of dots”).

Let’s have a look at what this means in real terms. Barely literate internet auction seller danny 1970000 has what looks like a bronze statue of Diana for sale to the highest bidder.

THIS IS A STUNNING ROMAN STATUE LARGE 114 MM PART OF MY COLLETION MORE TO FOLLOW COMPLETE UK FIND NICE GREEN PETINA NO RESERVE

“danny” of Beccles, Suffolk, England clearly has a metal detector or sells items found by others who have. Over the past few weeks he has been selling a substantial number of little metal items all from his “own collection”.

Well, interestingly enough, last week he had another, a statue which looks like it is of Minerva

THIS IS A STUNNING ROMAN STATUE LARGE SIZE 108 MM PART OF MY COLLETION MORE TO FOLLOW COMPLETE UK FIND NICE GREEN PETINA NO RESERVE

Now let us assume that "metal detected object collector Danny" is telling the truth here, that these are truly ancient objects and found in the UK. Maybe David Connolly as an archaeologist would like to reflect on where he would go himself if he wanted to find such a figurine. They are not two-a-penny in fieldwork on the average Romano-British site. My thought is that if they are authentic, these finds suggest that “Danny” or his supplier has come across a votive deposit which he is now emptying onto eBay.

Now a merely “recording archaeologist” (for example a PAS-partner of artefact hunters) would pat "danny" on the head, say “

that’s nice Danny boy, if you would be so good, my dear artefact seeking partner, and give me some idea where you found this, a six-figure NGR will be sufficient, that’d be nice, now scamper off you history-hunting rascal, my old mate, and enjoy finding more”..

To my mind this is indeed being “pro-collecting”. To my mind a deposit like that which “Danny’s” finds seem to suggest is being emptied onto eBay deserves preservation for proper investigation under controlled conditions to add to our knowledge, not merely some token “recording” merely so some collector can increase the money in their paypal account.

“Pro-recording archaeologists” are doing nothing (NOTHING) to stop the erosion of Britain’s archaeological heritage through the exploitation of the archaeological record as a source of collectables. They are condoning and encouraging collecting and not trying to combat it. They are giving it an air of social respectibility instead of standing up and saying that this is not how a finite and fragile resource which most of us value should be being treated by a minority of self-centred individuals largely focussed only on their own material gain. And that is where I and Mr Connolly simply do not see eye-to-eye. Should real ornithologists be "partners" with egg-collecting nest-vandals in order to "record" where Ospreys HAD been nesting? This is a conservation issue not one of personal rights.

Mr Connolly congratulates middle class metal detecting enthusiast "Buffy the hampie slayer" on his blog for "pulling the cheesy mat from under the clay footed one....." and encourages him to "keep it up". I would like to ask him what is clay-footed about the arguments against encouraging this kind of exploitation of the archaeological record for personal entertainment and profit? He is welcome to comment here.

Connolly comes clean

Professional archaeologist David Connolly admits:

I have now been accused of a terrible thing.... being a quote: persistent purveyor of all those dots marking an inability to formulate complete sentences

It was fairly obvious to those "in the know" that the unnamed person who had sent congratulations and encouragement to Person-hiding-behind-the-pseudonym-Buffet for a "well needed" "pulling the cheesy mat from under the clay footed one" (i.e., Paul Barford) was pro-collecting Scottish archaeologist David Connolly. So it seems we were right.

Any time Dave Connolly feels like having a proper discussion about the archaeological issues involved in artefact hunting and collecting, he knows where your comments are welcome. Why "cheesy"? Where precisely do you see these "clay feet"? Why do you feel confident that the pro-collecting arguments are so much better founded? If they are, then surely it is the pro-collecting archaeologists like yourself that should be putting them forward and defending them against their book-writing critics rather than relying on the sniping efforts of rodent-obsessed "metal detectorists" to do the dirty work.