Or items which may have been placed on or near the grave after the funeral by friends or family. I buried a pocket-knife near the headstone of my fathers grave for example...
Funny to see some of the knee jerk reactions as if the guy is a ghoul...Of course the guy isnt looking to rob graves...oh the hyperbole!! I say do as you please...its on your land. Metal detect it for possible dropped coins and what not...which is obviosly what you are wanting to do...not dig up bodies I dont see the problem...detect the land...and be done with it. Anyone with any sense knows you are just looking for stuff just under the surface and not grave robbing. I would do it before someone DOES decide to name it a protected site...then anything found there will belong to the feds. My uncle used to metal detect battlefields in Georgia until the feds decided to claim everything...but he still has a lot of cool historical stuff from before that happened. I see no real difference. You arent stealing anything or looking to rob graves...you are trying to find lost stuff...like any other metal detectorist....on YOUR land no less. This is just an opinion of course...freely given like every other bit of advice in this thread Its what I would do. I wouldnt let some nut on the internet falsely accusing you of trying to rob graves effect you...
It's interesting to see the opinions posted by the different individuals. As you may have surmised, they do tell alot about ones character.
exactly...some people are so quick to climb on a moral high horse and to accuse him of wanting to rob graves is just outlandish...All he wants to do is look for stuff around old graves that might have fallen and are long forgotten. Morality is a funny thing...I wonder how these people would react to buying something excavated from an ANCIENT grave or tomb...or is that somehow different...moral relativism for the win.... and by that I mean those people who actually dig up body and all that's buried with it...THEY are just conducting a scholarly excavation right? or maybe roman coins found near or around ancient graves even...what about medieval? To soon? Or for that matter...those who collect ancient coins and artifacts PERIOD...Do they know where those ancient coins and artifacts came from and how they got in their hands? No...Many ancient coins are stolen from dig sites, criminals who dig up ancient graves and battlefields or steal them from a dig site...that could I guess be said to have been stolen from the original owners...so to be honest unless you know exactly where the coin came from...most ancient coins could be stolen from graves or more than likely got to them in an illegal way since so many nations where they are found have laws against artifacts being shipped out of the country...if you own an ancient coins...you could be not only holding stolen goods, but they might have been taken from a grave. I saw a show the other day about an ancient Roman tomb...these archeologists dug it up and took what was in it...THOSE GHOULS!!! Whatever you do...good luck man...hope you do detect and find something nice...take care.