Diary of our trip to Croatia 2014 - Part VI

FRIDAY

We had spent the morning at the Celtic Hoard site, most signals had been retrieved but a few had been left as they were deep. It was a great morning but we had to stop as there was a meeting arranged at the museum for the afternoon. This isn’t unusual, technically we were working for the museum as volunteers, at least that’s what it said on our permits. On the last day we hand over all our bagged and data-logged finds complete with findspots. Today was different though. We had liaised closely with the museum and Hrvoje during the week and all our finds had been handed over with the exception of the ones we had recovered that morning.  So why the meeting? 

That question was answered as we turned the corner to the front door of the museum offices. Outside we could see people standing round with notepads and pens, cameras and even a video camera….The museum had arranged a press conference! 

We went into the conference room, our finds were laid out on the table in front of us all bagged up and grouped by day.  Our friendly archaeologist Hrvoje was there and Danijel Petkovic,  the Director of the Museum.  At the end of the table was Marcom Mikolasevicem from the Ministry of Culture,the man who without his permission and signature this trip could not have happened.

Hrvoje is probably the most progressive thinking archaeologist in Croatia and for many years he has been promoting the use of metal detectorists in archaeological surveys. I think it’s true to say that he’s been pretty much banging his head against a wall though, the archaeological community are closed to the idea. They regard metal detectorists as little better than thieves.  This makes what was to be said all the more astounding.

Hrvoje explained to the gathered member of the media about what we had been doing what we had found and how the CTX 3030 with its built in data-logging G.P.S. has shown just how simple it can be to metal detect in a responsible manner by sharing the information with the museum. Danijel was also very complimentary about our achievements from the week and spoke about how we had added to the museum collections.

Then came the amazing bit, the bit where our jaws hit the floor. Marcom took the microphone and stated that we had had a very successful week and as a result of this two sites were to be protected by law: the Roman site that we had identified Thursday morning and the Celtic site we had identified Thursday afternoon. Two protected sites, one days work, a fantastic result.  Further to this he was going to put forward to his superiors at the Ministry of Culture that a recommendation should be made to every archaeological department in Croatia that they should be using metal detectors in the course of their work. Astounding! 

Hrvoje had been preaching this practice to the Croatian archaeological community for nearly 10 years and now, because Marcom, the man from the Ministry, had seen at first hand the harmonious way that detectors in the right hands can work with and benefit the historical record, he was prepared to put forward the recommendation.  I honestly believe that this change could not have been achieved with any other machine than the CTX 3030 as there is no other machine in the world that utilises the functionality of an integrated G.P.S. system to log the find spots and then overlay them simply and seamlessly onto a map. This is the feature and functionality that most impressed Marcom, this is the reason for the change.  When Minelab bought out the CTX 3030 they said it was a game changer. They were right, it has certainly been instrumental in changing the relationship between archaeology and detecting in Croatia.