That gold is worth about $160k!
If I ran the program I would pay at least the metal value to anyone turning artifacts in. To remove the temptation that doubtless keeps some finds away from the science.
> Aagaard, Dreiøe and their friend the late Poul Nørgaard Pedersen discovered nearly 1.5 kilograms of Viking Age gold artifacts near the modern town of Fæsted, including armbands that archaeologists have interpreted as oath bands [...] Aagaard, Dreiøe and Nørgaard received just over a million kroner for the oath ring treasure, the equivalent of about $150,000.
I'm glad to hear it!
Less glad that I missed this fact reading the article :)
It's a bit like internet piracy, make it easy and convenient to follow the law and most people will do it.
Melting it removes the legal risk.
Considering the state of copper theft, the large number of videos on facebook and youtube describing how to melt metals into bar stock, and the low cost of the tools I dont know why this would be considered specialist knowledge.
Maybe if they needed aqua regia or something.
There's always people going, "psh, this won't make weed any more accessible, it's already so easy to get, anybody can do it!"
And yet, nevertheless, inevitably there are people who try it only because it's now legal and openly sold in stores. A lot of people simply don't want to do things they consider shady, no matter how easy it is. Maybe it being legalized doesn't make it any more accessible to you, but you aren't everyone.
What I am saying is that the process is already legal and available, so the process isn't a barrier to melting and selling the gold. I don't take a position on whether someone would simply not do it because its illegal.
The process of growing and selling weed was illegal, and thus also a barrier to accessing weed.
If anything your line of reasoning makes me want to legalise and protect melting gold you find and selling it.
There's a pretty lively market in gold on ebay. Often forged into bars or coins by end users.
I have personally dealt with retail gold buyers who legally clear gold of all sorts with little question. They pay based on purity and likely have a price for whatever purity the horde gold is smelted at.
There's also that Singapore Gold Port at the Singapore Airport. Even if they wont touch you directly, there are IIRC, in person trades in the airport which can then be deposited straight into storage.
I know a guy who found a gold treasure on a field and he was contacted by a private collector after appearing in local news (he turned them down). So who knows how often it happens? But I don’t think finds are common enough that detecting and selling can be a lucrative business. It is usually enthusiasts with an interst in history.
Digging for gold artifacts and treasure is not a great strategy to become rich - these people are obviously much more interested in the history, and maybe the recognition. Of course they will turn it in.
Doubtful. Finding such a hoard and reporting it to the authorities for formal examination by default means showing where you found it so the site itself can be examined by archaeologists. They'd likely be able to tell if you'd found more than you reported in the cache site. It's like forensics, but for ancient artefacts and ruins, pretty sophisticated at times.
You're right that we don't know what new branches of science might be developed that could produce new insights from old artifacts.
But remember the situation. My idea makes it possible to record and analyze ancient finds that currently just disappear. It only gets us 99% of what we want, but in the current system we get 0%.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana...
> currently just disappear
They don't though. The preferences are as other comments have described - to stash the artifacts away in storage or to leave them in the ground for excavation in the future.
Whether or not the laws and common practices are fair to the people who discover the items is a separate matter.
Do you feel that vikings somehow embedded secrets in their coin?
Scrolls have writing on, if we can't yet read them we'd know that there was something else to discover (known unknowns) and clearly wouldn't dispose of them.
Of course the Vikings might have embedded secret extraterrestrial technologies in their coins, but I'd take the bet that they haven't.
The downthread comment about leaving things in the ground is right though -- it was, and is imo, the right thing to do.
Lots and lots of stuff gets cataloged and archived and basically never looked at again resulting in little archeological value or any other public value and is kind of just scientific hoarding.
Spending gold you can't document the origin of is most decidedly going to be a hassle. Certainly not without risk. And you probably don't have money laundering connections.
And you'll sleep better at night.