Irish law prohibits searching for archaeological objects with a metal detector without written permission from the government
???
WHY? this is the most ridiculous thing I have read so far.
I’m curious as to how and why this became a law in Ireland, maybe there’s a justifiable reason for this but without further context this is baffling to say the least
It totally does make sense. Amateurs with metal detectors are in most cases not really qualified to to archeological digs. And they really are not able do document them properly. Archeology is not only about the artifacts, but also about how they were found. Take a roman coin: If you buy it on Ebay or find it in the street, it is a roman coin. But if you find a roman coin f.e. on an ancient battlefield, you can use it to date the battle. That context gets lost when archeology is not done properly.
Also their finds are vanishing mostly into private collections. That really doesn’t matter with random coins, but f.e. the sky disc of Nebra, one of Europes most stunning bronze age finds, was dug up during an illegal private metal detector search and they then tried to sell it on the black market. So it does make sense to ban metal detector hunting.
??? WHY? this is the most ridiculous thing I have read so far.
I’m curious as to how and why this became a law in Ireland, maybe there’s a justifiable reason for this but without further context this is baffling to say the least
It totally does make sense. Amateurs with metal detectors are in most cases not really qualified to to archeological digs. And they really are not able do document them properly. Archeology is not only about the artifacts, but also about how they were found. Take a roman coin: If you buy it on Ebay or find it in the street, it is a roman coin. But if you find a roman coin f.e. on an ancient battlefield, you can use it to date the battle. That context gets lost when archeology is not done properly.
Also their finds are vanishing mostly into private collections. That really doesn’t matter with random coins, but f.e. the sky disc of Nebra, one of Europes most stunning bronze age finds, was dug up during an illegal private metal detector search and they then tried to sell it on the black market. So it does make sense to ban metal detector hunting.
It may be an anti-looting measure. If you are caught artifact-hunting without a permit, it’s assumed you were doing it for profit.