2 Dominique Bosquet, Cécile Ansieau, Elise Delaunois, Christelle Draily, Véronique Moulaert & Olivier Vrielynck (Agence Wallonne du Patrimoine - AWaP), Legal detectorism in Wallonia: 2019-2023 overview The new Walloon Heritage Code (CoPat), which will come into force on 1 June 2024, has maintained the possibility of delivering a permit to people wishing to carry out "detecting activities involving the modification of the ground or the removal of objects using a metal detector" (CoPat, art. D.80). However, legal adaptations have been made, based on experience gained since the implementation of this legalisation policy in June 2019. The communication will present the legislation, AWaP’s practical arrangements and management of the data generated by the various mandatory declarations, some results in terms of archaeological heritage knowledge. The means implemented to disseminate this knowledge and maintain the link with legalist detectorists will also be presented. Finally, some figures covering the period 2019-2023 will be analysed, which will make it possible, to a certain extent, to evaluate the effectiveness of this policy and the social profile of the detectorists. Keith Westcott (Detectorists Institute and Foundation), Archaeo-detectorists and practitioners Tomorrow, the archaeologists arrive with their tool of choice on this historic site, 6 tons of hydraulic might to strip the topsoil where yesterday, archaeologists praised the non-evasive benefits of fieldwalking now, rarely included within the budget. Today, before the 1m wide 300kg mechanical bucket cuts into and scrapes back this ancient land, we have the opportunity find and save our irreplaceable portable heritage from the literal jaws of destruction…. As the plough turns the soil horizon and the living environment affects the ancient pasture through bioturbation, a new focus of archaeo-detectorist searches for dating evidence. The SPIA Survey brings a systematic and consistent approach to archaeology, integrating field-walking with metal detecting, a three-dimensional approach performing surface surveys to locating deposits in stratified layers of archaeology… a strategy to form a contextual landscape and mitigate the unwanted possibility of metal implements, mechanical or mattock, from negatively connecting with metal artefacts. Lajos Juhasz (Eötvös Loránd University Budapest), A dirty business: Tackling uncleaned coin finds and the first steps towards a shiny future Metal detecting has brought a huge change in the lives of both professional and amateur archaeologists in addition to vast amounts of new material. The finds finally surfaced, still keep a great deal of their information hidden under the layers of dirt. Guided by curiosity and obligation to tap into this valuable source of knowledge, I started the adventurous journey of cleaning the coins myself. However, I realised there was insufficient information available on this topic on the internet, or was met with the lack of willingness from experienced people to share their knowledge. Often the ones propagated are in fact damaging for the artefacts. Therefore, it would be useful to share our experience with each other and perhaps devise a common manual for metal detectorists and the general public.
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