The Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum

Click on any image to launch slideshow; all photos © PAS / British Museum

‘The envy of the world’ is how Ed Vaizey, Minister for Communication, Culture and the Creative Industries described the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), through which amateur treasure finders and metal detectorists can responsibly lodge their finds to the benefit of archaeologists, museums and the public at large. Since the scheme launched in 1996 700,000 objects discovered this way have entered the public domain. The Minister was speaking on May 25th at the British Museum, which now manages PAS, where he launched the latest – and the last – Portable Antiquities & Treasure Annual Report 2008. Henceforth all finds are reported and accessed via the scheme’s website: www.finds.org.uk.

In spite of its dry name what is wonderful about the Scheme, evident at yesterday’s launch, is the melding of enthusiasm between amateurs and archaeologists, mudlarkers and museum pros, as they literally piece together objects hidden from view for centuries and puzzle over their stories. (Just what is the significance of the 4th-century Romano-British knife-handle recently found in Lincolnshire depicting an erotic scenes between a woman and two men, one of whom holds a severed head? Nothing like it has been found outside Britain.) This positive relationship is further reflected in the dramatic rise in finds logged by the scheme. In 2010 a total of 90,146 objects was recorded, a 36 per cent increase on the previous year. Referring to the significance of a hoard of rare Roman gold coins discovered in his Wantage and Didcot constituency and choosing not to comment on what the knife handle discovery tells us about British culture past or present, Mr Vaizey thanked the agencies involved, the finders and the landowners who permit them to tinker about in the soil.

More photographs of the launch on Flickr.