Police from the precinct in Ujście arrested a man who was conducting illegal search on registered archaeological sites with use of a metal detector. In his home the officers discovered nearly 1000 artefacts obtained in a potentially illegal way.

Police officers responded to a call about a man surveying the fields with a metal detector at an archaeological site in the area between Ujście and the village of Mirosław. The Police caught him with the device, headphones and a shovel.

The man, a 38-old citizen of Piła admitted that he was searching illegally and that it’s not his first excavations of this kind this year. He did not have permission of the land owner neither from the local Heritage Office. The officers arrested the man and took his equipment.

As the man did not have any found objects by him the Police searched his apartment in cooperation with he local Heritage Office officials. In there they discovered a couple of ancient fibulae, buttons from the period between the Napoleonic wars and World War II, couple of hundreds of coins dating between the 17th and 20th centuries, belt buckles, elements of harnesses, body and clothes ornaments, medals, scapulars and crosses dated to different centuries.

The Police is now trying to determine the value of the artefacts but the objects need clearing, conservation and identification first. Further proceeding shall reveal whether actions of the man fall under definition of a crime. It seems so far that the detectorist may suffer consequences due to his illegal actions of destroying archaeological sites and appropriation of historical and archaeological objects. He may face now 5 years in jail.

(after Komenda Powiatowa Policji w Pile & TVN24)