Next month, the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Grant will introduce a Private Member's Bill for the reform of Treasure Trove. What, Treasure Trove again? Haven't we been here before?
The answer is yes, but for one reason or another sensible reform has hitherto always eluded us. And more's the pity, because Britain's portable antiquities laws are chaotic, discordant, and among the worst in the world.
Imagine that while digging your vegetable plot you find an early medieval bronze reliquary cover. If your garden lies in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the law tells you to report your discovery. But not in England and Wales. There, not only do you own the reliquary cover, but nothing requires you to bring it to the attention of scholarship either, no matter how historically important it might be. You can put it on your mantlepiece or drop it down a mineshaft - the law doesn't care.
Unless, that is, the reliquary contains gold or silver. In that case, the Crown does require that you report it, so that an inquest can determine whether it is Treasure Trove. A coroner's jury will be solemnly convened to ascertain whether the reliquary was hidden with the intention of recovery, or lost or abandoned. If hidden, the item is Treasure Trove and belongs to the Crown; if lost, the coroner returns it, normally to the finder. This Gilbert-and-Sullivan system also operates in Scotland and Northern Ireland, alongside the more demanding requirements they have about reporting.
So what should be done? First, there is the conservative view, which asserts that for all its ramshackle eccentricity, Treasure Trove should be left alone - apparently because, in some mystical sense, it `works'. This is hard to accept, principally because it doesn't. Treasure Trove is irrational and inefficient.
Second, there is the libertarian view. Some treasure hunters argue for the repeal of all portable antiquities laws, and say the interests of the individual finder and landowner should prevail over those of the public. In practice this would mean that the finder of, say, another Sutton Hoo should have the right to put the finds in his (or the landowner's) garage, or split the assemblage in a dozen different directions. This school attacks reform as `nationalisation of the past', and denies the existence of a `public interest' because the concept of `public' is intangible.
In reply, we might wonder why, if there can be a national interest in, say, the future of Britain's currency, there should not be a comparable interest in education or the advancement of knowledge. It has long been recognised in law that some elements of Britain's cultural inheritance - buildings, monuments, archaeological sites - are of such importance that the freedom of their owners to wreck them should be subordinated to the public interest in their survival and care. If this applies to an earthwork, it should surely apply to a find like the Coppergate Helmet.
So, finally, there is the reformist view, which divides into two camps. The radical camp argues for the sweeping away of present inconsistencies, and the introduction of a full portable antiquities statute founded on logic and principle. Treasure Trove, according to this camp, is archaic nonsense, and should be scrapped.
The problem with radical reform, however, is that it is all or nothing, and in the absence of all we are left with nothing. This is why there are others - the CBA included - who argue that graduated reform is more realistic. Tidy up Treasure Trove, we say, introduce a scheme to encourage finds reporting coupled with a campaign of public education, and see what happens. If this works, the need for further statutory change could dissolve.
So back to Sir Anthony Grant, whose Bill has the full support of the `moderate reform' lobby. The Bill's main aims are to remove the obligation for coroners' juries to read dead minds, and to extend the scope of reporting to items found in association with treasure - like the pot in which the coins are found. At around the same time, the Government is expected to invite views on how reporting of finds could best be encouraged.
The key point to stress here is that moderate reformers are not interested at all in dispossessing finders and landowners of the great bulk of finds - which is what libertarians accuse us of. We are not interested in filling museum basements with ever more boxes of bric-a-brac. What matters is the reporting of finds, the reporting of findspots, the care and conservation of our historic artefacts, and the growth of understanding about Britain's past. So this time, let the Bill succeed.
Richard Morris is Director of the CBA
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© Council for British Archaeology, 1996