Monday 22 November 2010

Crosby Garrett: Mr Evan-Hart Responds

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Julian Evan-Hart sort-of responds to my comments on his remarks about the finding of the Crosby Garrett helmet through a longer post on the Rally UK forum. For the enthusiast.

In the meanwhile somebody has pointed out to me that despite his somewhat instrumental approach to the PAS [apparently recommending liaison with "museums" more frequently - seemingly because they can help out with finding unprotected land to search on and may help conserve your finds], the PAS in its conservation notes cites as one of three recommended books on "conservation" Mr Evan-Hart's book: Beginner's Guide to Metal Detecting by Julian Evan-Hart & Dave Stuckey, Greenlight Publishing 2004. £9.95

You can find a summary of it here. Interesting reading, especially on "researching sites" - finding sites with lots of artefacts to collect that is.

3 comments:

Jee said...

Did anyone from PAS actually read that book before recommending it? It seems to fly in the face of their own advice for leaving any restoration to professionals.

But apart from that it's hardly appropriate to recommend a book whose author has said "Sorry but sod the pot!!!” Wasn't it set up to ensure no-one would dream of saying things like that.

Paul Barford said...

I guess so, but to be fair, the conservation notes were not in fact written by PAS staff.

They could however vet the stuff they put up on their own website for public information. After all, for an "outreach" resource, there is precious little else there explaining archaeology and the ethical issues connected with collecting and the antiquities trade on their website.

Jee said...

"They could however vet the stuff they put up on their own website for public information."

You bet they could! A publicly funded organisation can hardly take the view that duff information on their website isn't their affair because they didn't write it!

There's clear evidence of how "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" in the fact this book was "made known to all participants" as part of the Water Newton Rally method statement by David Connolly - pasted unread from PAS I'd hope, not agreed with. So that means it has probably gone through 2 or 3 levels of archaeologists before being "made known" to detectorists. It could have been High Treason for all anyone knew! As it was, it was certainly not what ought to have been recommended.

 
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