The Technorati search has produced a few interesting hits over the last day or so. Two blogs in particular stand out with their standpoint on Illicit Antiquities trade. Derek Fincham talks about the return of Petroglyphs to their original home and finishes his commentary with:
The only real solution is to educate the public about the benefits of archaeology, why it is important, and how easy it can be to lose information from important sites forever. I think that is one of the biggest reasons why more nations should adopt the approach most of the UK has taken with the Portable Antiquities Scheme….
Over at the “Looting matters” blog, authored by David Gill of Swansea University, he talks about our aims and achievements and finishes off with:
So lobby groups in America should be cautious about citing PAS as the cure for looting (see comments by Peter Tompa and Dave Welsh): PAS is encouraging dialogue and I feel optimistic. What finds continue to go unrecorded? How many archaeological sites continue to be destroyed though deliberate looting?
I meant to also write about the Cranky Professor and his love of the Scheme! I’m actually pleased that someone is making use of the tag cloud! As it is a short post, here it is in full:
I’m playing with the PAS database artefact cloud. Click and see. It’s a big list of words that reflect the finds - the bigger the words, the more of that kind of object people have found. Coin is biggest (71063 entries), but I clicked on badge, of course. 251 entries. That takes you to the database - click on a header to resort - for instance, click on COUNTY to see finds localized, or TYPE to sort between badge and pilgrim badge. Then click on the individual entries to see pictures and information! Oh my!
I love modern living!
Recently we’re starting to see more people discussing what the Scheme is up to, and some of the things we’re trying to achieve. Maybe we’ll see more of this once I have rebuilt the database to allow for reuse of our data via web services.
OpenCalais helped to tag this with: America • Dave Welsh • David Gill • Derek Fincham • Peter Tompa • real solution • Swansea University • United Kingdom • web services
Possibly related posts: Celtic Coin Index data now on Online Archaeology map • Scheme research projects • Portable Antiquities Scheme in the British Museum review 2007/2008 •
