Private finds and image rights... and wrongs.

Following on from my earlier blogs on detecting and torcs and access and ownership of finds, I wanted to look in greater detail at these topics and discuss the impact that privately-owned torcs and image rights restrictions have had on my research and my ability to carry it out. I hope that by looking at the recent furore surrounding access to another archaeological artefact - the Norton Disney dodecahedron - and relating it to my own experiences, it will become clear that the holding of finds in private hands, and restricting access/rights to finds/images, has a direct - and negative - impact on research. Unfortunately, all too often the finds which researchers have trouble accessing or reporting on are those that most people think of as 'important' or valuable - whether precious metal or not - and those objects, of any type, now in private ownership. As discussed in a previous blog, access to finds often, ultimately, depends on monetary worth. This is what I call The Gollum Effect: a situation where rare/monetarily valuable/covetable finds are acquisitively kept in private ownership and effectively out of reach of the public gaze. Mostly they are antiquarian or detected finds, but recently a find from an organised archaeological excavation, the Norton Disney dodecahedron, potentially sets a worrying precedent for future artefact research.