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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 2971682, member: 44316&quot;]Nathan Elkins is a well-known spokesperson for the anti-collecting community. His arguments are full of holes. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Sometimes&quot;. A straw man argument. &quot;most coins were buried by Roman soldiers before battles&quot;. Doe anyone believe this? I have read hundreds of scholarly articles related to hoards and that is a possible explanation for a small fraction of small hoards (individual soldiers were probably not carrying 500 denarii), but far more hoards are thought to be &quot;savings&quot; hoards. </p><p><br /></p><p>Even if the battle argument hypothesis were the case (and it is not) the argument hinges on the word &quot;Roman&quot;. Does he think <b>Greek</b> soldiers did not participate in battles? </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Why weren&#039;t they reporting what they found? Ten years! Horrible!</p><p><br /></p><p>Oh! I know (and so does Nathan): Bad German laws. It is too bad Germany does not have a scheme for recording finds and reimbursing finders fairly.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Does anyone argue this? The argument is that most hoards, and most really big hoards, are found elsewhere (which is true). Also, those thousands of single finds are almost all of grotty coins not worthy of the collector&#039;s market. I have numerous publications of what coins were found on some sites (Antioch, Sardis, etc.) and they have only a few plates with the most interesting single-find coins found and even those are mostly in terrible shape and close to worthless. The publications always mention a remarkable fraction of single finds which could not be identified at all. The vast majority of nice coins come from hoards. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>When someone argues, you should put your thinking hat on and evaluate the argument, not just accept it. That argument strikes me as nonsense. Simple nonsense. </p><p><br /></p><p>If <b>you</b> can&#039;t think of a better hypothesis I&#039;d be surprised.&nbsp; How about, the community was saving up to get enough to build something (a temple?), and added contributions from nearby communities as they came in. How about, someone was building up a war chest with occasional exactions from their vassals (or whatever the right term would be in those days for regions/villages expected/forced to contribute). </p><p><br /></p><p>Do you really think people bury 52,000 coins and intend <b>not</b> to retrieve them? </p><p><br /></p><p>Yes, I am willing to toss coins into a fountain or spring, and Bath, England, proves it was done. But that is a far cry from burying 52,000 coins in a pot.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Did you read that? Did you attempt to think about it? Maybe you don&#039;t know enough to feel you should pause and evaluate the argument. You just let it &quot;flow over you.&quot; Let&#039;s consider it. </p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ll go over it piece by piece below.</p><p><br /></p><p>First,&nbsp; English laws made all the knowledge of the Frome Hoard possible. <b>English laws</b>. Without something like English laws that sort of knowledge will be lost. Granted. So <b>the solution is already known: Fix the laws</b>! </p><p><br /></p><p>How does one read this argument and deduce/suggest that restricting collecting is a fix? The only way to come up with that &quot;conclusion&quot; is not to think but to react emotionally to a misleading sequence of thoughts. </p><p><br /></p><p>[Three paragraph aside: Suppose you could makes laws and regulations making it much more difficult to collect. Do you think that would stop metal detectorists who enjoy finding coins from looking? Do you think if you could drop the demand by half or three-quarters that would make it not worthwhile to find, smuggle, and contact someone who wants them? </p><p><br /></p><p>Even if collectors &quot;should&quot; not participate in the type of free market we have now, many will anyway. So, why go after collectors when the problem is elsewhere and the solution has been tried and works?</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Change the laws! ]</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Nonsense. They would have been offered on the market and scholars would have found about them just fine. Collectors love having their coins published and love to cooperate with scholars (at least, if the scholars are not anti-collecting snobs).</p><p><br /></p><p>True, the Frome Hoard coins might not have all been in that big group together. So what? The explanations of the whole (which <b>was</b> found together) are lacking <b>anyway</b>. It is not like we know a lot about why it was assembled in layers (admitted by Nathan above). It is not like we have a clue about &quot;the community.&quot; We don&#039;t. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And, what was that?&nbsp; What would be lost? It told us nothing about a community. It told us nothing about how the coins were used (unless you accept that they were buried without the intention to recover them).&nbsp; Read the argument critically!&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>This is tiring. I feel I am arguing against the case of a lawyer with a guilty client who is arguing a very weak case, but the best he can, in favor of his client. Here, the &quot;client&quot; may be the archaeological community who can&#039;t get permission to dig unless they toe the party line.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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