‘Black Archaeology’ in Eastern Europe: Metal Detecting, Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Objects, and ‘Legal Nihilism’

Across Eastern Europe, archaeological sites are being emptied by metal detecting. Not only does this hurt the study of archaeology, missing persons from the world wars cannot be returned to their families, due to the looting of militaria with identifying information.

Since the 1990s, the flow of cultural objects into illicit collections has sharply increased, assisted by the rapid development of the Internet and social media, which instruct looters in the selection of metal detectors, targeting of archaeological sites, techniques of detecting and so on.

Using open source analysis of online forums and social media platforms, as well as sales and ownership of metal detectors, this investigation analyzes the current market for “treasure hunting”. This research shows that there are at least 14,910 illicit metal detectorists in Belarus, 54,066 in Poland, 26,377 in Ukraine and 75,158 in Russia.

Authors:
Sam Hardy