1,100-year-old Viking sword pulled from UK river by magnet fisher | Hacker News Reader

1,100-year-old Viking sword pulled from UK river by magnet fisher

livescience.com

44 pointsohjeez34 comments

... against the wishes of the landowner and river authority. But, given it was donated to a museum (c/f Indiana Jones) no action will be taken.

There's a huge tension between Archeologists, Landholders, Developers, Metal detectorists, Magnet fishers, unexploded bomb experts, CSI labs and found objects related to crime..

But the other side of this coin is Italy where people use construction site diggers to rob graves and flee, irrespective to the damage. A framework which encourages reporting and resolution of finds, preservation of the locus and data is good.

> ... against the wishes of the landowner and river authority.

...I mean, it originally arrived in the area against the wishes of the landowners at the time as well. The gentleman is simply continuing a long established tradition.

(Seriously, though, aside from the fact he wasn't supposed to be doing what he did where he did it, archaeological information was lost that could have potentially been recovered had the sword been left in situ and a team called to survey it. We really shouldn't be celebrating this.)

Aren't objects at the bottom of a river at great risk of permanent damage? I'd imagine metal artifacts are hoping for a magnet fisherman to find them before they're gone for good.

It's been there for 900 years. It's not going to suddenly vanish next Tuesday.

Is a river, the sword is just an isolated object displaced by the current or washed by a flood. All the context is lost. The chance to find an archaeology location here with more objects related with the sword is close to zero

e.g. correlating relative location of objects found on a riverbed with each other and with structures historically known to be nearby was this person's two year project: https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/award-project-rescuing-rom...

So, the guy that found it got nothing. The museum got another piece of trash. Should've thrown it back in the river or sold it privately.

What's the point of spending all that time covered in dirt fishing in the muddy waters in the freezing rain for treasure when even in the best case scenario, when against all odds you pull a 1000 year old sword from the depths, some pencil pusher leaps from the woodwork to snatch it from your hands and leave you with no reward? The next guy will think twice. This is why English society does so poorly. They don't properly manage incentives.

Magnet fishing there isn't allowed. They explicitly don't want to incentivise you to do it, because they don't want you to do it.

So you're right, there isn't much point, and that is intentional.

No it isn't about safety this guy would've been left empty handed if he found that sword in his own backyard. They have arbitrary rules to smother any type of fortune, to make seeking fortune futile, to suppress those who want more. They see success as a threat to their artificially fair society. Better the fortunate receive nothing to keep the peace. If the people get a taste for more they will leave the country right fast.

Keep them uneducated and unskilled and tax them out of options into poverty and dependence. Don't let them leave - the people are the governments assets.

Given your comment, I suspect there's not much correcting you, but for the sake of others who are interested in how treasure works in the UK:

If you find something that might be treasure, you must report it to a coroner, who will first determine whether it really is treasure. Typically treasure is something valuable or historically significant.

If it is treasure, an independent body will then value the treasure, and also make decisions about who the treasure belongs to - typically it will be split between the finder and the landowner. At this point, the treasure will be offered to a museum for the price set by this independent body. If the museum doesn't want it or cannot afford it, then the finder/landowner get to keep the treasure, otherwise the museum buys the object and pays the finder and landowner.

So ultimately, assuming you find something, you'll always get to either keep the item, or have someone buy it off you.

That said, there are stipulations around not being able to just go around and dig up anyone's ground, and you always need to get permission from the landowner before going treasure hunting. In this case, magnet fishing is apparently not allowed on rivers, hence why they figured out an arrangement to donate the sword rather than be paid for it.

EDIT: And if you want to watch a light-hearted comedy series about metal detecting, you can't go wrong with Detectorists!

Seem to work differently here in Scotland...

https://www.thorntons-law.co.uk/knowledge/finders-keepers-tr...

What made me wonder was the use of the term "coroner" - I'm pretty sure we don't have those - seems to be covered by Procurators Fiscal.

I’m guessing a UK coroner is not the same as the US coroner. Seems odd to have to give your treasure to the dead body investigators.

It's the same here (coroners investigate deaths); they weirdly also handle these treasure finds.

The word "coroner" means "on behalf of the Crown". They were originally responsible for representing the government in matters that seemed suspicious. Mostly, that means deaths, but it has also expanded to include findings of treasure.

The US inherited the term before it gained that treasure-inquest aspect. The connection to the "crown" has been completely lost, but we kept the word.

Bro, someone found an old hunk of metal in a river, and you're losing your shit here.

Maybe the person who found it doesn't care that they didn't get a reward and is just happy to have an amazing story and to have helped all of humanity learn a little more about the collective past that somehow all of man managed to forget about after it happened.

There are much more important things in this world besides fortune, and not everything is a conspiracy by the shadow government to oppress you.

There was a time you pulled a sword out of a lake or a rock and you got to become a king. The UK just ain’t what it used to be.

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

This is not reddit

If he had found it in his own backyard it would have been his unless deemed a "treasure" but in that case the museum acquiring the sword would have had to buy it.

Here my issue is the plain threat to make the finder give away the sword.

he wasnt allowed to magnet fish at this spot, so he was basically unlawfully looting

Let's not go over the top. Fishing for metal junk in a river is not "looting" whether allowed or not. This is the sort of 'crime' that should carry a penalty of a telling off and a £50 fine at most, not a threat of prosecution and thousands in legal costs and fines, not least when the River Trust's main argument is 'safety', thereby implicitly acknowledging that magnet fishing has no negative impact on the river's environment.

Ianal, and I suspect neither are you.

i am simply refererring to facts stated in the article:

> There was a little dispute with the landowner and the rivers trust who don't permit magnet fishing. The latter sent a legal document saying they wouldn't take action on the condition that the sword was passed to a museum, which I had done.

Yes, we've all read it, hence my comments.

IDK, people finding bombs in the river seems a valid 'safety' argument to me.

I've read stories where they evacuate whole blocks when someone digs up a 500lb bomb in their basement until they can properly evaluate how safe it is.

I mean they only just moved one out of someone's garden in Plymouth like a week or so ago.

But still gotta get stuff done in any case, otherwise nobody'd be digging anywhere, forever.

Dude. I own my back yard. It's mine. Property ownership means something. If I say I don't want you digging there, you shouldn't dig there. I don't go around /your/ property taking random stuff and calling it a fortune. Get your metal detector off my lawn.

I did not mention safety because the reasoning for the relevant authorities to set the policies they have was irrelevant to my point.

You're arguing against a strawman of your own making. I addressed your point about incentives, and nothing else: The incentives here are exactly as the relevant authorities want them to be.

You're free to disagree that is not how they should be, but that is an entirely separate discussion.

> They see success as a threat to their artificially fair society

Bro, this is in the UK. Fair play is a long way down the government list of priorities these days.

The reward is the find. No magnet fisherman except the ones on Youtube or Patreon actually makes enough to pay for their magnets.

You don't do this to try to make money, you do it for fun, knowledge, and the occasional cool (but not very valuable) item.

It’s still no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Which ceremony was that?

It’s a Monty Python reference.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6HX6cfy3At4

A quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!

(One of my favourite python scenes. Makes me giggle every time!)

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