Abstract
Slovakia belongs to the states which underwent drastic legal, economic, social and political changes after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. After 2000, modern legal regulations have been adopted in order to define good assumptions for management as well as protection of archaeological heritage. Despite a number of new laws, public interest in this field has been still violated. In 2011 amendment of the penal code, including new strict legal regulation of unauthorised usage of metal detectors in archaeology, came into force. Since this time, estimated number of “treasure hunters” has decreased significantly. Currently, police and courts already know the values of archaeological heritage, and they respect its specific requirements. Although penal legislation should be applied very prudently, in legal and social conditions of states like Slovakia, it plays an important role in prevention of archaeological criminality and solution of its consequences.
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- 1.
At present in the territorry of the Slovak Republic, there are more than 15,500 officially declared cultural monuments of which more than 500 are monuments of archaeology, representing around 3% of all cultural monuments. These are mostly fortified settlements and ruins of castles and sacral objects. Besides cultural monuments there are 28 official historic reserves and 86 historic zones in Slovakia. Historic reserves and historic zones typically represent the historical centres of towns.
- 2.
The academic environment (the Institute of Archaeology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences) of the archaeological board is currently (October 2016) represented by four representatives; state administration authorities (the Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic and regional monuments boards), museums and the private sector have two representatives each, and one member acts on behalf of universities.
- 3.
According to the last official information (government resolution Nr. 411/2013), there were 15.388 cultural monuments in Slovakia listed in the central register at the end of 2012, including 464 archaeological monuments. The most numerous representatives of the archaeological monuments were castle ruins and hillforts.
- 4.
Since the Act on Monuments and Historic Sites came into force (April 1, 2002), the ministry has revoked the permit only once, in 2012. This permit was originally issued to a private company, and the ministry took the action due to long-term and extraordinarily unsatisfactory results of the archaeological research, particularly the research of bastion relicts in the narrow vicinity of the town centre of Košice. Currently, after turbulent progress, the case is still not finally solved by the court. Similarly, there are several examples of refusals to extend the validity of certificates or even their revocations, due to failure to submit the research documentations or to proven lack of competence to lead the field research properly.
- 5.
Prerequisites of research documentation are set forth by the ordinance of the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic no. 253/2010 Coll. implementing the Act no. 49/2002 Coll. on the Protection of Monuments and Historic Sites, as amended.
- 6.
The monuments board awards finder’s rewards several times a year; however, the number of cases in question, including rewards, has a tendency to increase due to media promotion. The highest amount of a finder’s fee, which was also promoted in the media, was paid in 2014 to the amount of €30,000 for the accidental discovery of a treasure of more than 10,000 mediaeval coins from Bratislava-Devínska Nová Ves (Fig. 5.1).
- 7.
The past witnessed the buying of archaeological finds, often in bulk (treasures or the so-called depots), for collections in museums. Besides supporting illegal activity (“Demand meets supply regardless of legality of the whole process”.), it constituted contemptible disposing of public finances that were thereby used for backing an activity in sheer contrast to the public interest in the protection of cultural heritage. Purchasing finds,which were known to originate from robbed sites or other illegal activity, somehow legalised the activity of detectorists in the eyes of the general public.
- 8.
I hereby thank Matúš Sládok from Regional Monuments Board Trnava for the provided information.
- 9.
Section 249a of the Penal code.
- 10.
The process of defining a new crime was initiated and the wording was suggested by the Ministry of Interior, without previous consultation with the Ministry of Culture, so as a result, there is an illogical legal construction of “illegal production of the object of cultural value”, despite the fact that each object of cultural value has to come from the past, so it must have certain age.
- 11.
According to the analysis of official records of 2015 archaeological research results, provided by Dr. Milan Horňák, director of the Slovak Association of Archaeologists, the proportion between „positive“and „negative“ones was just 48:52, which is a very surprising and unexpected result. This fact can be explained in different ways, partly by the absence of state control in the field, however it is clear that the practice of decision-making of the state authorities, respectively the reliability of their supporting documents is not high, so the people are often obliged to pay the costs of the research unnecessarily.
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Michalík, T. (2019). Archaeological Heritage, Treasure Hunters, Metal Detectors and Forgeries in the Centre of Europe (Archaeology and Law in Slovakia). In: Campbell, S., White, L., Thomas, S. (eds) Competing Values in Archaeological Heritage. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94102-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94102-8_5
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