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Discovering what lies beneath

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:40:12 GMT

Discovering what lies beneath

A TREASURE hunt is underway by pupils in West Sussex after a retired headmaster dug up and restored an old project to "bring history to life."

Chris Hall has relaunched the West Sussex Schools Metal Detecting Project, which saw children discovering treasures like a silver-gilt Tudor posy ring, Elizabethan coins and a Roman sestertius (a type of silver coin), featured on the BBC in the 1990s.

Mr Hall, whose best find was a gold coin from around the time of Christ's birth, approached his old school, Birchwood Grove in Burgess Hill, along with Newick House School, to suggest that his hobby could be i

nformally incorporated into the history teaching curriculum.

He said: "It's quite difficult nowadays, but we can make it work. It just brings history to life and makes it more interesting."

He has secured 10 metal detectors on long-term loan from the company C.Scope, which the schools will use on a rotating basis.

Mr Hall is hoping the children will use the detectors on school fields, and also in their gardens at home, to enable them to do some "historical detective work".

Previously children have found lost jewellery and old coins, together with interesting historical pieces.

The project will allow Mr Hall to give informative talks on his hobby, and provide an identification service for the children when they find potential pieces of treasure. The project is now underway at Birchwood Grove and Newick House, and Mr Hall is hoping to expand it to other schools in the area.

hunts for treasures of the deep

MrMetalDetector — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:49:52 GMT

'Good Morning, America Weekend' hunts for treasures of the deep

By Kit Bradshaw (Contact)
Monday, January 28, 2008

Photo by Kit Bradshaw

Ted Winner, Good Morning America Weekend senior broadcast producer sets up the first shot for his cameraman, Jordy Klein, before they leave the dock at the Crab House and head for the treasure hunting ship, the Polly L, anchored in the Jupiter Inlet. Good Morning America Weekend was shooting its first segment of a series called X Marks the Spot, which tells the tales of the treasures of the deep and the people who hunt for them.

Photo by Kit Bradshaw

Doug Pope, left of the Polly-L and Scott Thomson of Jupiter Wreck head out to the Polly-L in advance of the film crew from Good Morning, America Weekend who shot video at the Jupiter Inlet on Monday for a February segment called X Marks the Spot, a look at treasures of the deep and the people who hunt for them

Photo by Kit Bradshaw

The Polly-L, a treasure ship that is working the waters around Jupiter Inlet hunting for the treasure of the San Miguel Archangel, was the site Monday of a photo shoot for Good Morning, America Weekend.

Photo by Kit Bradshaw

Ted Winner, Good Morning America Weekend senior broadcast producer (in red) heads out to the Polly-L with one of its owners, Doug Pope, and Winners assistant cameraman, Justin Forde. The GMA crew was at the Jupiter Inlet to interview treasure hunters and to see how undersea treasure hunting is done for the special series called X Marks the Spot, which will air in mid-February.

Bronze Age hoard

MrMetalDetector — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:47:55 GMT

January 22, 2008

Scrap metal was Bronze Age hoard

Simon de Bruxelles

A coach driver discovered Britains largest hoard of Bronze Age axeheads while waiting for a party of school-children at a Dorset farm.

Tom Peirce, 60, asked the farms owner if he could use his metal detector in one of the fields during his lunchbreak. Within minutes he heard a loud beep and found part of a bronze axe.

Over the next three days Mr Peirce and two other metal detectorists unearthed more than 500 items of Bronze Age metalwork, including 268 complete axeheads. The axes, buried at three separate locations more than 50 metres apart, could be worth tens of thousands of pounds, which Mr Peirce would share with the farms owner, Alfie OConnell.

Axeheads were used as a form of currency during the Bronze Age, about 3,000 years ago, but some experts believe that the hoard may have had some ritual significance such as an an offering to the gods.

Mr Peirce, from Ringwood, Hamp-shire, who has been metal-detecting for five years, said: When we took them out of the ground some of them were so pristine you would think you had just bought them at B&Q yet they were 3,000 years old.

We were very lucky because there was not much else in the field. If we had tried another place or walked in a different direction wed never have found them. This was a once in a lifetime find.

Mr OConnell, 62, who has owned the farm near Swanage for four years, said: Within about half-an-hour of Tom searching he came rushing over to me looking shocked. During the war a plane had crashed in the same field and for a minute I thought he had found a bomb. We went back up there on my tractor and saw the axeheads. I didnt have a clue what they were. I thought it was scrap metal at first. It is very exciting.

The axeheads, which are four inches long and two inches wide, are being assessed by the British Museum, which may buy them.

The coroner for Bournemouth, Poole and East Dorset will hold an inquest at which it is expected that the axeheads will be declared treasure-trove. If so, the landowner and finder would receive a reward reflecting the market value of the hoard.

Andrew Fitzpatrick, of Wessex Archaeology, has been asked by the British Museum to look for signs of a settlement. He said: The artefacts could have been used as a form of currency and buried at a time of crisis but many people believe they were buried as an offering to the gods.

A lot of Bronze Age objects like this were buried in the ground and it is a bit of a coincidence that many people didnt go back for them.

The optimistic detectorist

MrMetalDetector — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:46:05 GMT

The optimistic detectorist

By Angus Watson

Published: January 12 2008 00:53 | Last updated: January 12 2008 00:53

Very soon after arriving in a field in Kent, my metal detectors low bloops are transformed into a high-pitched Wheeeee!

It appears I have struck gold already, or at least metal. Dig that! Pete Harbour, my companion and expert metal detectorist, enthusiastically cries.

As I begin to dig, I wonder, possibly a little over-optimistically, whether I might locate a find as big as Kevin Elliots in 1998. One ordinary morning, on his cousins farm near Glastonbury in Somerset, Elliot used a metal detector for the first time. Minutes later he asked his cousin for a bucket. In the end they needed several, because hed found 9,213 silver Roman coins, Britains largest haul.

Maybe I am not being so fanciful, after all Last year 58,290 ancient objects were reported to the British Museums Portable Antiquities Scheme, a 47 per cent increase on the number reported in 2005. Whats more, most of these were unearthed by amateur metal detectorists. There is a growing number of these too, though not all of them play by the rules. Nighthawking, the name given to illegal metal detecting (that undertaken without a landowners permission), has become common enough for English Heritage and the British Museum to commission a study into its effects.

Fortunately, the majority of peoples motives are nobler. Most detectorists do it because theyre into history and archaeology, explains Harbour, sales co-ordinator for Joan Allen, a large metal detectorists store in Biggin Hill. He says: I bought one on a whim when I was 19 and was soon hooked. Within a year Id found a gold nugget worth about 350 by the Thames. Its been an on-and-off affair since then. Ive been married a couple of times, which stopped it for a while.

Investigating my find, I excavate far too big a lump of earth, according to Harbour. Under his instruction, I halve the clod, testing each half for beeps, then halve the half that beeps, and so on.

Soon it is down to the size of a tennis ball. Anticipation builds. Is it a diamond-encrusted ring? A valuable coin? No. It is a small, grey strip of lead.

Its probably from a diamond-patterned window, muses Harbour.

Shall I put it back? I ask.

No! Pete shouts. Future detectorists wont want to dig it up again, apparently.

OK so its not Blackbeards treasure but, on the bright side, I dont have to report it to my local antiquities liaison officer. Under the 1996 Treasure Act, you have to report treasure, which is two or more coins, prehistoric metal objects, or anything more than 10 per cent gold or silver and more than 300 years old. In practice, its more complicated than this, so best just to report anything interesting. Museums have rights to anything valuable, but theyll pay you.

As I sweep the machine across the ancient site, I wonder what has gone on there before and invent a story about my window lead. Reassuringly, Harbour tells me such fantasies are one of the appeals of metal detecting. You can touch things that havent been held for hundreds or even thousands of years, he says.

We head back to the modern world. Sitting in a traffic jam, my mind is elsewhere. I decide its been a bit like fishing on dry land. We caught nothing, but had a mellow afternoon and could still dream about the big one.

...................................................................................

Detector directory

Where Hillforts, deserted villages, battle sites, Roman towns, Victorian rubbish dumps, tidal river banks, beaches, pub gardens. Ask local metal detector clubs or use old library/internet maps to find sites.
When After rain: wet metal is more detectable
Permission You need the landowners permission. They get 50 per cent of valuable finds.
Re-check Always run the detector over a hole that youve dug. That lone coin may be one of thousands.
Code of practice Mostly common sense refill holes, close gates, report human remains to the police.
Which machine?Spend at least 300. Pete Harbour at Joan Allen can answer your questions (http://www.joanallen.co.uk)
Report big finds Tell the local finds liaison officer (http://www.finds.org.uk)
Cleaning Youll ruin ancient finds if you try to clean them at home, so take them to a museum.

'The Antiques Rogue Show'

MrMetalDetector — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:43:57 GMT

'The Antiques Rogue Show'

From Lowry to Gauguin, Henry Moore to the ancient Egyptians - how overstretched police and the greedy art world allowed a simple family to forge a counterfeit career over nearly 18 years, writes David Pallister
'Artful Codger' spared jail

Monday January 28, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

George Greenhalgh: Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

In court, the case was described as a tale about a princess and an artist. The princess was a voluptuous headless statue of one of the six daughters of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, carved out of translucent alabaster.

The artist was an extraordinarily gifted forger who boasted about how he "knocked up in three weeks" in the garden shed of the council house he shared with his parents.

But equally it could be seen as a story of frustrated talent and ambition; and a chronicle of how a greedy art world and over-stretched police force allowed this Bolton family to refine their early efforts until they were able to fool galleries, museums and dealers on both sides of the Atlantic.

The princess, in the Egyptian Amarna style, sold for 440,000, largely from public funds, in 2003 and was given pride of place in the Bolton Museum. It was, said Angela Thomas, the Keeper of Egyptology, a rare piece of great significance.

But in 2006 Shaun Greenhalgh, 47, the artist, was arrested along with his parents, Olive and George, for an art forgery operation spanning two decades that raised 1m.

Shaun's greatest strength, according to the police, lay in the sheer diversity of his work, which his parents, armed with carefully researched provenances of family heirlooms, would then sell. Had they disposed of everything, they could have made more than 10m.

George Greenhalgh, 84, in a wheelchair and wearing thick, gold-rimmed glasses, was said to be the principal salesman - "a nice old man," Angela Thomas recalled - who revelled in fictional stories of his ancestors. Greenhalgh, after all, was an old Lancashire name with many historical characters.

The list of copied artists includes the painters LS Lowry and Samuel Peploe; sculptures came from Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Otto Dix, Horatio Greenough, Man Ray, Brancusi, and Gauguin. From antiquity there were purported Roman silver and gold artifacts with original metals, probably from coins, Assyrian stone reliefs and Anglo-Saxon jewellery.

The institutions approached included the British Museum, Tates Modern and Liverpool, the Henry Moore Museum in Leeds, museums in Manchester, Chester, Liverpool, Ireland and Dresden, and the auction houses of Sotheby's, Christie's, Philllips and Bonhams. The V&A provided funds.

If any of these institutions had inquired into where the Greenhalgh's lived, questions might have been raised earlier. The red-brick terraced council house with poky windows on a bleak estate close to the west Pennine moors in the northern Bolton suburb of Bromley Cross is not the most obvious place for an Aladdin's cave of inherited treasure.

After the three pleaded guilty in November and George's final sentencing today, the case is closed. But a closer examination reveals a more complex tale.

Rather than being accomplished operators from the start, the family's early attempts to pass off forgeries were often rebuffed.

In 1990 Peter Nahum, the international art dealer from The Leicester Galleries in London's St James's, took a call from a Mrs Greenhalgh who wanted to sell a still life by Samuel Peploe which she had apparently inherited from her grandfather.

George arrived at the gallery with the painting late one afternoon and insisted on cash, saying the rival Portland Gallery might be interested.

Nahum was under pressure, and handed over a cheque for 20,000. He had doubts later that night, he told the police 16 years later. On reinspection, he found it to be "a clever fake."

The next day he faxed Scotland Yard's art and antiques squad: "The painting was inspected by my restorer Hamish Dewar - 9 Old Bond Street. He is prepared to stand in court. Tom Hewitt says it's a fake. Over to you."

The tip-off came to naught. According to former detective sergeant Dick Ellis the squad was under-staffed at the time and the Greenhalghs slipped through the net.

It happened again in 1995. George tried to sell an Anglo-Saxon ring through Phillips Auctioneers, who took it to the British Museum for analysis. The keeper of pre-history in Europe department determined it was of modern origin. Anglo-Saxon, the experts now agree, was not the family's best suit. And the museum's experts recognised the family name from the past. In 1989 George had tried to sell to to Manchester University a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon silver vessel - the so-called Eadred Reliquary - he claimed he had found metal detecting in a Preston park.

The museum decided it was not genuine. Three years later he presented a Roman silver tray, known as the lost Risley Park Lanx, to a London dealer. After intensive analysis, two British Museum experts concluded it was probably a copy, though not recent, and possibly using the original metal.

Nevertheless, it was bought by a dealer for 100,000 and was later placed on display at British Museum.

The museum contacted DS Ellis of the Yard but, once again, he told the Guardian, the squad was overwhelmed with other work.

Another alert came in 1999 when Christie's was asked for an opinion on two Roman gold ornaments. They were withdrawn from sale after George would not allow them to be scientifically analysed. The auction house's own internal research revealed the Greenhalghs' links with a number of fakes in the past; and when the Amarna Princess was sold in 2002, Christie's, which was asked to value it, raised concerns about the provenance. They were not, however, followed through.

And so the business thrived: a bust of Thomas Jefferson purportedly by Greenough but produced in a hired Bolton workshop, sold at Sotheby's for 48,000; a Barbara Hepworth terracotta goose was bought by the Henry Moore Institute for 3,000.

Even today, after a lengthy police investigation, the family remains an enigma. How did Shaun, who left school without qualifications, manage to acquire this dazzling talent, not only in copying such varied art forms but also in sourcing original materials and creating elaborate provenances?

George, we know, served in the last war and was wounded in Italy. "I got two bullets in my head and one in my back and it still hurts," he told a sentencing hearing this month. Significantly he is said to have been a technical drawing teacher, though where is unknown. Metal detecting was a hobby.

Peter Clayon of Seaby's Antiquities in Old Bond Street first met George in 1991 when a grey-haired balding man came into the gallery carrying a suitcase. Inside, wrapped in a tartan blanket, was a silver tray, which he said contained an old family treasure. It turned out to be a replica of a tray from Risley Park which had been found by a ploughman in 1729.

"He seemed like an ordinary, elderly gent," Clayton recalls. "He was bluff and amiable, like a farmer. "

Police suggested the family had a relatively frugal lifestyle, without even internet access. They lived in the same council house for decades, and did not even take the odd cruise. Olive apparently never left Bolton. There was, however, a fine library of art books.

Some neighbours have longer memories. "They kept themselves very much to themselves," said one. Another recalls the young Shaun being a bit of a tearaway, often throwing what appeared to be broken old plates around the garden. Sometimes ancient coins were spotted in the hedge. Clearly something was going on before Shaun mastered the subtle brilliance of a Turner-inspired Moran watercolour, which he claimed he could run off in half an hour.

It was George who was known locally as the artist. "He used to make these lovely stone Greek statues years ago and sell them on the front lawn as garden ornaments," said another neighbour. "I once said to Olive, 'If your husband was dishonest he could be a rich man.' She just sort of recoiled with a shocked look on her face."

The Greenhalghs were finally rumbled by a piece of stone. In 2005 George wrote to the British Museum enclosing photographs of three reliefs in the Assyrian style dating back to between the 9th and 7th century BC. Unaware of the file on the Greenhalghs, the museum was excited. One of the reliefs, with a soldier and horses, appeared to be from the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh. "A superb example," wrote John Curtis, Keeper of the Middle East department.

Shortly afterwards Shaun arrived with the tablets at the British Museum in his Ford Focus (bought from the proceeds of the Bolton princess). The museum decided to buy the horses stone and the two others were sent for sale to Bonhams.

One was examined by Chantelle Waddington, head of antiquities, and consultant Richard Falkiner. "It was a gut instinct, but stylistically it didn't add up," says Falkiner.

They took their suspicions to the British Museum, who then began a more detailed forensic examination.

This time the police acted and connections were soon made with the Amarna Princess and the Risley Park Lanx - both of them withdrawn from view - and many other forgeries.

In their first interviews the three stuck to the story of family heirlooms but as the evidence mounted up, Shaun made a statement. At trial his barrister told a sad story: "Mr Greenhalgh discovered many years ago he has no style of his own. He had one outlook and that was his garden shed. What he can do is copy. He was completely self-taught ... that may make him unique. He was trying to perfect the love he had for such arts."

There remains a final, nagging question: what was the Greenhalghs' motivation? Certainly not the quest for a grand house or an opulent lifestyle. Experts say forgers are often driven by an inability to develop a distinctive style and a concomitant desire to mock the vanity and greed of the elitist art world. It may be so.

Last week the Guardian knocked on the front door of the Greenhalgh house to ask these questions. A lock rasped shut, a blind was drawn and from behind the frosted glass plane a woman shouted: "Go away or I'll set the dog on you."

New Grant for better protection of parks

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:59:06 GMT

Coastal Heritage Society will use National Park Service grant to better define and protect site where American and British forces fought in 1779

Revolutionary War artifacts found near the Spring Hill Redoubt across from the Savannah Visitors Center are, clock-wise from left, a brass piece from a pistol, lead musket balls, and a gun flint. (Photo: John Carrington)

The blood-soaked battlefield where American, British, French, Irish, Polish and Haitian soldiers fought in the fall of 1779 began to disappear soon after the final shots were fired.

President George Washington, visiting Savannah in 1791, wrote in his diary that "scarcely any of the defenses remain." The Central of Georgia Railway, when building its yard in the 1830s, leveled a key portion of the battlefield and used the dirt to built an embankment for its tracks.

Industrial and commercial intrusions have continued through the years, and much of the ground where American heroes Casimir Pulaski and William Jasper charged and were mortally wounded is now covered in concrete.

Coastal Heritage Society archaeologist Rita Elliott hopes to save what's left.

She led a 2005 archaeological dig that found a key battlefield position - the Spring Hill Redoubt - and that discovery has led to a $37,857 National Park Grant that will finance deeper research.

In Phase I of her campaign, Elliott and other CHS staffers will utilize GIS (geographic information system) technology to digitize the historic maps of the battle and overlay them on a current map of the city. Using the Spring Hill Redoubt as an anchor, computer software could "tweak all the layers" until that earthen fortification lines up with the original maps and the modern map lines up with all the rest.

"Then you go to the sites," she said, "and do archaeology and see if you can find any traces of them."

Elliott is especially hopeful that GIS procedures will enable CHS to find the locations of the 13 other redoubts the Redcoats built, a ring of abatis-protected fortresses that made the city impenetrable.

Locating these defenses, she emphasized, is "crucial to understanding the context of the entire battle."

The digging for information will extend far from Savannah, said Elliott. Document research will be conducted at the David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing, Pa., the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan and at other repositories. Papers of British General Henry Clinton and American General Nathanael Greene are at Ann Arbor, and they contain letters written by key figures in the struggle in Savannah.

After exploring these avenues, Elliott is hopeful that enough evidence will be found to justify Phase II, an ambitious addendum that likely would include an application to place the site on the National Register of Historic Places.

That step, she said, would finally bring broad recognition to the site.

Mark McDonald, executive director of Historic Savannah Foundation, said such acknowledgement is long overdue.

"The Coastal Heritage Society has done an incredible job," said McDonald. "The Siege of Savannah is the most overlooked major historic event that's happened in Georgia."

This historic myopia, said McDonald, can be attributed to a couple of factors - the traditional emphasis of the New England theater of the war, and the triumph of the British forces at the battle.

Americans tend to look at wars from their perspective, he said, using World War II as an example. "Most of us don't realize how many Russians died and what their role was."

McDonald said CHS' efforts could prove helpful to the redevelopment of its neighborhood, - the MLK corridor.

"They will contribute to each other," he said. "Battlefield Park will serve as an attraction for that area."

The development of that area concerns Elliott. Recent growth and a lack of knowledge about the extent of the battlefield are threats, she said.

Still, she's keeping her focus on this grant and its potential to publicize and protect this historic property.

"This project will demonstrate," said Elliott, "that in spite of urban development vestiges of the battlefield remain and can be preserved."

Savannah during the American Revolution

1765: Savannah protests the Stamp Act, although not to the degree of most other colonies. South Carolina firebrands belittle Georgians, questioning their patriotism and calling them the colonial equivalent of girlie-men.

1768: Benjamin Franklin agrees to become Georgia's representative to England. He also represented Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Savannah will repay the debt by renaming a square for this founding father.

1770: James Wright, Georgia's colonial governor, dissolves the colonial assembly after long-running friction between the two. In Massachusetts, the Boston Massacre takes place.

1773: The Boston Tea Party excites patriots and infuriates loyalists across the colonies.

1774: The Intolerable Acts close Boston Harbor and anger many in the colonies. The Liberty Boys in Savannah hold their first organized meeting. The First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia (no delegates from Georgia make the trip).

1775: The battles of Lexington and Concord move the argument between the crown and its colonists from bitter words to open warfare. In Savannah, patriots raid the royal powder magazine on Reynolds Square and divide the powder with revolutionaries from South Carolina.

1776: In January, a group of patriots storm the governor's mansion on St. James (now Telfair) Square and arrest Wright. The governor leaves the colony the next month. That summer, three delegates from Georgia - George Walton, Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett - attend the Continental Congress and sign the Declaration of Independence.

1777: On Feb. 5, Archibald Bulloch becomes Georgia's first elected governor, but he dies after only a month in office. Gwinnett steps in as acting governor. His term is short also. Gen. Lachlan McIntosh fatally wounds Gwinnett in a duel on May 16. Later that year, George Washington and the Continental Army winter at Valley Forge.

1778: In late December, the Continental Army guarding Savannah offers almost no resistance to an attack, leaving the city again in British hands.

1779: In January, British forces capture Augusta. Soon, Wright returns as governor of Georgia. From Sept. 8 until Oct. 9, French and American forces surround and threaten Savannah, but are unable to break through British defenses.

1780: The British turn their attention to the South and win key battles at Charleston and Camden. But the Americans win a vital decision at King's Mountain in the Carolinas. Washington names Nathanael Greene as commander of Continental forces in the South.

1781: Colonial forces take control of Augusta in June. Lord Cornwallis finds himself trapped in Yorktown, with Washington on the land side and a French fleet blocking any escape by water. The British surrender in October effectively ends the war.

1782: The British evacuate Savannah on July 11. Georgian James Jackson and his troops are allowed to enter the city first among Continental forces.

1783: The United States and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Paris, the official end to the conflict.

Sources: "Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733," by Preston Russell and Barbara Hines; "Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution," by Benson Bobrick; and the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

- Compiled by Chuck Mobley

Battlefield Protection grants for 2007

The National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program awarded 19 grants in 2007. The awards totaled $492,184, and they are intended to assist in the protection and preservation of sites in several states, including Battlefield Park in downtown Savannah.

The program has co-sponsored 328 projects in 37 states since 1990.

The 2007 projects, excepting the one in Savannah, were:

Alabama Historical Commission; $37,800; assess condition of masonry at Fort Morgan, a Civil War-era stronghold in Mobile Bay.

Branchburg (N.J.) Historical Society; $6,750; conduct an archeological survey at the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Two Bridges.

Buckland (Va.) Preservation Society; $40,100; develop a preservation plan for the site of the Battle of Buckland Mills.

Burlington (Vermont) Community & Economic Development Office; $43,982; conduct a cultural landscape inventory of Burlington's sites associated with the War of 1812.

Central Virginia Battlefields Trust Inc.; $4,100; fund brochures and wayside exhibit panels to interpret the 1864 Battle of Harris Farm.

Citizens for Fauquier County; $25,100; identify and document battle sites at Auburn, part of the 1863 Bristoe Station Campaign.

Western Missouri Civil War Round Table; $4,000; fund preparation of a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Little Blue River Civil War battlefield.

Fauquier County Government; $18,100; fund a series of public seminars to build public support to start preservation planning for Fauquier County's 12 Civil War battlefields.

Guilford (N.C.) Battleground Company; $21,000; fund a community-based campaign to promote battlefield preservation in central North Carolina.

Heidelberg (Mich.) College Center for Historic and Military; $21,500; document and seek to preserve newly identified War of 1812 battlefield areas at River Raisin.

Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (Conn.); $27,000; fund a survey of areas now outside the National Register boundary of the 1637 Battle of Mystic Fort, and develop a long-range plan to protect them.

Nevada County (Ark.) Industrial Development Corp.; $28,097; fund the preparation of a preservation plan for the Civil War battlefields of Elkin's Ferry and Prairie D'Ane.

Preservation Society for the American Revolution (Mich.); $9,500; fund the establishment of a Web site for this new non-profit organization.

Radford (Va.) University; $61,841; fund a preservation and management plan for the Civil War battlefield sites at Saltville.

Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project; $31,000; fund a preservation and management plan for Fort Butts, a Revolutionary War earthwork at Portsmouth.

Rutherford County (N.C.) Board of Commissioners; $18,707; fund the identification of cultural and archaeological resources at Gilbert Town, a key site in several Revolutionary War campaigns.

South Carolina State Park Service; $43,000; fund a regional battlefield preservation plan for eight Revolutionary War battlefields and numerous associated historic sites within the Charlotte, N.C.-Atlanta corridor.

War Memorial Museum of Virginia Foundation; $12,750; fund a cultural resource survey to access the condition of specific portions of the Williamsburg Civil War battlefield.

- Compiled by Chuck Mobley

On the Web

For the following Web extras, go to this story at know.savannahnow.com:

Study a graphic that explains the Siege of Savannah, a complicated struggle that began on Sept. 9, 1779, and ended with a bloody repulse of American and French forces on Oct. 9, 1779.

Listen to Coastal Heritage Society archaeologist Rita Elliott describe what she will be searching for in several prominent libraries and repositories that contain Revolutionary War artifacts and documents.

Read about other battlefield protection grants that have been awarded for 2007.

The grant plan

The Coastal Heritage Society has received a $37,857 grant from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program. Its effort to protect and document the battlefield, and eventually get it placed on the National Register of Historic Places, will be undertaken in two phases.

This view of Battlefield Park shows the recreated Spring Hill Redoubt in the foreground and a formation of 800 markers, representing Allied casualties in the 1779 battle, in the background. The markers are set to represent the Allied charge against the redoubt on Oct. 9, 1779. (Photo: John Carrington)

Phase I: With the recently discovered Spring Hill Redoubt as a reference point, the CHS will combine GIS (geographic information system) mapping technology, primary document research and limited archaeological investigations in an effort to determine the locations of key defense points in the 1779 Siege of Savannah. It will also include public outreach in the form of presentations to community groups, a brochure about project results, a technical report and additions to the current Revolutionary War exhibit in the Savannah History Museum.

Phase II: If approved, this portion of the plan would feature further research, including archaeological digs on parts of the battlefield that are private property (if the owners approve), and culminate with an application to get the site listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Program offers teachers in-depth history of Revolutionary War battle sites

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:53:28 GMT

Program offers teachers in-depth history of Revolutionary War battle sites

By DEVON COPELAND - dcopeland@thestate.com

Most people are aware of the Souths role in the Civil War but fewer realize the region was pivotal in the war for Americas independence.

While the final major battle of the American Revolutionary War at Yorktown, Va., may have led to Britains official surrender, it was the battles in the South notably, in South Carolina that historians say weakened British efforts and won independence for the 13 colonies.

Its part of the lesson more than 40 history teachers from South Carolina and around the United States heard this week, as they put on their sturdiest pairs of sneakers and trekked across the states battlefields as part of Patriots and Redcoats: The American Revolution in the Southern Back Country.

The program put on by Converse College and showcasing some of South Carolinas well-known historians offered K-12 history teachers the opportunity to see battle sites and expand their knowledge of the events that occurred in the late 18th century.

Participants dissected the experiences of soldiers, militia, women and blacks during the Revolution and found new ideas for engaging students about the nations history.

When I think about when I was in school, it was teachers standing in front reeling off dates and information, said Melanie Johnson, an elementary school teacher at Richland 1s Carolina School for Inquiry, who brought a digital camera to record the sights for future lessons.

She and 46 others spent a day this week learning a detailed account of the Battle of Cowpens, where the American army turned the flanks of the British army in a 1781 battle.

The entire second half of the American Revolutionary War was fought in the South and much of it including two major victories against Britain was in South Carolina.

We hope that theyll have a better understanding of how the war was won and how complicated it was, said Melissa Walker, the programs director.

Teachers stayed at Converse College, and costs were covered through a $100,000 grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Participants made trips to several of South Carolinas eight Revolutionary War battle sites including Kings Mountain near Blacksburg, one of the few major battles of the war fought entirely between Americans.

Southerners were divided, with some people fighting for independence, others for loyalty to England.

It wasnt a simple matter to choose which side you were going to be on, Walker said.

For blacks, choosing sides was even trickier, as the British army offered them their freedom in exchange for fighting on the side of the British.

Seattle teacher Wilma Killian said the workshop opened her eyes to the American Revolution beyond the well-known battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill.

I knew absolutely nothing about what took place here.

Oh my gosh, how could I have been teaching and not know this stuff?

Reach Copeland at (803) 771-8485.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

How much do you know? Take this quiz:

1. Which country was the United States fighting for its independence?

2. How long did the war last?

3. Where was the second half of the war fought?

4. What was the name of the group that opposed the Revolution?

5. Which country helped America win the Revolution?

Answers

1. Britain

2. 1775-83

3. The South

4. Loyalists

5. France

SOURCE: Digital history at University of Houston

S.C. SCHOOLS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Heres a quick breakdown of what students are expected to know about the war for Americas independence:

Third grade: Summarize the key conflicts and key leaders of the American Revolution in South Carolina and their effects on the state, including the occupation of Charleston by the British and the battles of Cowpens and Kings Mountain.

Seventh grade: Compare the perspectives and roles of different South Carolinians during the American Revolution, including those of political leaders, soldiers, partisans, patriots, Tories/Loyalists, women, African-Americans and Native Americans.

High school: Explain the impact of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution on the American colonies and the world at large.

AOL gives up treasure hunt

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:44:52 GMT

AOL gives up treasure hunt
By Jay Fitzgerald
Boston Herald General Economics Reporter

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 - Updated: 04:57 AM EST

America Online has given up its demand to dig up the lawns of two Massachusetts homes where it thought a neo-Nazi spam scammer may have buried gold.

The Internet company said yesterday it no longer wants to take a backhoe to properties in Medfield and Westwood because of a lapse of time and other unspecified reasons surrounding the case of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, the missing online scammer who once bragged he buried gold and platinum bars on the properties owned by relatives.

We just did not feel digging was a good option, said AOL spokeswoman Amy Call. AOL looked at the totality of the chances of recovery and decidednot to dig.

Oh good,said Llwellyn Davis,Hawkes grandmother,when told of AOL s decision to refrain from hauling trucks, radar and sonar equipment onto her Westwood property in an attempt to find Hawke s alleged stashes of gold. Last year,AOL also had won a court order to dig up the property of Hawke s parents in Medfield. Hawke s relatives resisted, saying that there was no hidden treasure on their properties and that they hadn t seen Hawke in years.

We re all very depressed about it, said Davis of Hawke s disappearance since he lost an AOL lawsuit and was ordered to turn over millions of dollars in loot he allegedly scammed from AOL s Internet customers. Court filings have painted a picture of Hawke, a Westwood high-school graduate,as a globe-trotting con artist who may have buried gold as far away as Belize and Thailand. In court documents, a downtown Boston merchant said he sold Hawke $350,879 in gold in 2003.

Octopus unearths 900-year-old hidden treasure

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:34:16 GMT

Octopus unearths 900-year-old hidden treasure

By RICHARD SHEARS - 24th July 2007

It is a story that combines all the great mysteries and exciting discoveries of the sea an octopus hauled onto a fishing boat with valuable ancient pottery attached to its suckers.

Conjuring up visions of ancient mariners and sailing ships laden with fabulous wares, Korean fisherman Kim Yong-Chul pulled up more octopus, most of which had shards of pottery attached to their tentacles.

Now the chance discovery is being hailed as one of the great undersea treasure discoveries of modern times.

Officials at the National Maritime Museumin Seoul say the pottery dates back to 12th century, when the Koryo Dynasty ruled the Korean peninsula.

More follows...

Some of the 30 bowls from the 12th century discovered by the octopus

Before and after: The bowls are carefully restored to their former glory after nine centuries underwater,

The extraordinary discovery on what was for 58-year-old Mr Kim another 'day at the office' began when he took his small boat out from the town of Taean, 60 miles south west of Seoul. As usual, he was hoping for a good catch of webfoot octopus, which are a delicacy in Korea.

But on this particular day, he decided to try somewhere new, a few miles south of his regular fishing spot.

Casting out a long line, he felt a familiar tug and hauled up his first octopus of the day. He was puzzled by several blue objects attached to its suckers and thought at first they were shells.

But when he examined them, he realised they were pieces of pottery. Not realising he was on the point of making an incredible discovery, he cast out his line again and again, bringing in more octopus with shards of pottery attached.

Then he brought one up with a whole plate caught on its tentacles.

By now, Mr Kim realised that there had to be something important deep below. He had heard that divers had found several shipwrecks filled with relics, including ancient pottery, along the coast.

More follows...

An octopus similiar to the one caught in Korea

On his return to shore, he contacted the museum, which sent officials to examine the pieces. 'You can imagine just how excited we were when we studied the bits and pieces as well as the virtually perfect plate,' said Mr Mun Hwan-Seok, a museum official.

'We arranged for an urgent exploration of the sea bed and although we did not find a ship down there, we were able to find 30 12th century bowls.

'It seems that a ship carrying Koryo pottery was wrecked there and what excites us is that these pieces are perfect examples of beautiful Koryo pottery. A large number of kilns were established in the area and the ship must have been transporting the pieces when it went down.

'Although other ships have been found and pottery recovered, this is the first time a family of octopus have found a wreck for us.'

Many of the pieces are decorated with chrysanthemum or vine patterns.

Meanwhile Mr Kim is to be rewarded by the Museum for his discovery, but just what he will receive is being kept a secret for the time being.

Viking Treasure Hoard Found in England

MrMetalDetector — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:39:20 GMT

Viking Treasure Hoard Found in England

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER,

Posted: 2007-07-21 12:11:09

LONDON (July 21) - One of the biggest Viking treasures ever found has been discovered on an English farm by a father-son team of treasure hunters, the British Museum announced Thursday.

Photo Gallery: Viking Bounty

British Museum / AP

A father-son treasure hunting team found this coin with hundreds of others on a farm in England. The treasures date back 1,000 years to the Viking era.

< Previous 1 of 4 Next >

The trove of coins and jewelry was buried more than 1,000 years ago, a collection of items from Ireland, France, Russia and Scandinavia that testified to the raiders' international reach.

"It's a fascinating find, it's the largest find of its type of over 150 years," said Gareth Williams, an expert at the British Museum who examined the items.

He said it was the largest such find in Britain since the 1840 discovery of the Cuerdale Hoard, a mass of 8,500 silver coins, chains, and amulets.

The BBC reported that the treasure could be worth as much as $2 million. "This is a discovery that isn't just once a generation, but once a century," said Jonathan Williams of the British Museum.

David Whelan, 60, and his 35-year-old son Andrew were trawling a through a farmer's field near Harrogate, in northern England, on Jan. 6 when their metal detector squealed. The pair began digging, finding a silver bowl more than a foot beneath the soil. Under British law, such finds must be reported to authorities.

The pair turned the bowl over to archaeological experts, who discovered it was packed with coins and jewelry. The bowl, a 9th century gilt silver container probably seized by Vikings from a monastery, had been used as an improvised treasure chest before being buried.

"We thought it was marvelous," David Whelan told The Associated Press. "But we didn't know for nearly a month what was in it."

In all, more than 600 coins and dozens of other objects, including a gold arm band, silver ingots and fragments of silver were found in and around the container.

Some of the coins mixed Christian and pagan imagery, shedding light on the beliefs of newly Christianized Vikings, said Gareth Williams, a curator of early medieval coins at the British Museum.

The booty was likely accumulated through a combination of commerce and warfare, Williams said. Its quantity indicated that at least some of it was taken by force, perhaps in raids on northern Europe or Scandinavia, he added.

The items were manufactured as far afield as Afghanistan, Russia and Scandinavia.

METAL DETECTOR FIND REVEALS GRISLY ROMANO-BRITISH SLAVE TRADE

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:14:41 GMT

METAL DETECTOR FIND REVEALS GRISLY ROMANO-BRITISH SLAVE TRADE
By Richard Moss	11/07/2007

Cast in bronze the figure crouches with his elbows and knees drawn together. A rope starting around the neck also binds his wrists and ankles. Winchester Museums Service/Portable Antiquities Scheme

In the year of the bicentenary of the Parliamentary Act to abolish the Atlantic slave trade a rare Roman figurine that references an earlier trade in slaves has been discovered near Andover in Hampshire.

The small bronze decoration came to light during a metal detecting rally attended by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) in Hampshire in June 2007. The PAS helps metal detectorists and other members of the public to identify and log archaeological finds in England and Wales.

Cast in bronze the figure crouches with his elbows and knees drawn together. A rope starting around the neck also binds his wrists and ankles.

The posture of the figure and the manner of his shackling strongly suggests that it represents an enslaved man, explained Rob Webley the PAS Finds Liaison Officer who handled and photographed the find.

The artefact has vertical and horizontal perforations, which travel through his body. Winchester Museums Service/Portable Antiquities Scheme

Rob has been looking closely at the work of Ralph Jackson, Curator of Romano British Collections at the British Museum and an expert on Roman symbols of slavery, to find out more about the find.

A recent study by Mr Jackson has catalogued only 16 other bound captive figurines from the Roman Empire, ten of which are from Britain. Elsewhere, there is mounting evidence for the Romano-British slave trade which involved both natives and others from within the empire, said Rob.

The artefact has a number of distinctive features, including the mans Celtic stylised hair and the vertical and horizontal perforations, which travel through his body.

These holes were clearly for mounting, added Rob, but the context in which these figurines were displayed is less certain. Might this artefact have been looked upon by someone connected with the slave trade living in Hampshire in the 2nd or 3rd century AD?

The artefact has a number of distinctive features, including the mans Celtic stylised hair. Winchester Museums Service/Portable Antiquities Scheme

This is the third bound captive figurine reported by members of the public through the PAS, which allows metal detectorists and other members of the public to report their finds to a finds liasion officer (FLO) for photographing and recording and to have the find location logged.

It is hoped this latest find, which has been returned to the finder, will be acquired by a museum, possibly even the local Andover Museum at some point in the future.

In the meantime the record of the find remains as a grisly reminder of an inhuman trade. In 2007, with our thoughts, correctly, focused on transatlantic slavery we should also spend a moment contemplating British associations with slavery both more recent and ancient, said Rob.

Thousands of finds reported to the PAS, including the three bound captive figurines, can be viewed at http://www.finds.org.uk


Andover Museum
	6 Church Close, Andover, SP10 1DP, Hampshire, England T: 01264 366283 Open: Tues - Sat 10.00 - 17.00 Last admission 16.15 Closed: Sunday and Monday Bank Holidays

White's shows off new products to Breakfast Club crowd

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:12:20 GMT

White's shows off new products to Breakfast Club crowd

Published: July 5, 2007

Jimmy Jewell shows off a hand-held metal detector, made by White's Electronics, at the meeting of the Breakfast Club on June 28. At left is a new walk-through detector the company has developed.
Photo by Scott Swanson

By Scott Swanson

Of The New Era

Things have been happening fast at White's Electronics over the past couple of years, and it's partly because of the work ethic of local employees, company personnel told participants in the monthly Breakfast Club sponsored by the Sweet Home Economic Development Group Thursday morning at the Community Center.

The company, which recently branched into the area of security electronics, is rapidly moving beyond simple metal detectors into more sophisticated equipment to help increase security at airports and other public places, said Tom Scrivner, manager of the company's Electronics Security Division.

Scrivner, who joined White's last year after starting a security metal detector manufacturing firm in Texas, and Jimmy Jewell, the Security Division's senior executive, demonstrated some samples of the new handheld detectors White's is manufacturing, which, Jewell said, are the best on the market.

They also showed a sample of the company's new Matrix 8000 security walk-through metal detector, which, they said is the most sophisticated available. Among the features it will offer are eight horizontal detection levels that will indicate to an operator at what level and on which side of a person's body metal is being detected. Scrivner said White's is also working with another firm to develop a walk-through detector that will also detect vapors.

"The government is going to replace every metal detector in every airport in the next two years," Scrivner said. "We've positioned ourselves to do that.

"We didn't want to manufacture a good metal detector," he said. "We wanted to manufacture a great metal detector. Good is the enemy of great."

He said the company is also developing detectors for use in nightclubs (which will include an ultraviolet light for checking driver's licenses) and for police officers (which will be sensitive enough to detect a hypodermic needle).

Other products White's is developing are:

n A new office zone detector that can be used by prison officials to check prisoners' hidden cavities for metal contraband. A similar detector may be developed to check hogs for hypodermic needles before they are butchered. Scrivner said White's has been contacted by a sausage maker that has had problems with pieces of needles getting into meat after they've broken off while hogs are being given supplements and vaccinations.

n Technology to prevent shoplifting by detecting when foil-lined bags are brought into stores. Scrivner said the bags can block signals intended to set off anti-shoplifting sensors. White's machines will detect such bags, take a photo of the person carrying such a bag, and transmit it to security officers' cellphones, so they can track the activities of a suspected shoplifter.

n Parking meters that will sense when a car leaves a parking space.

"Think how many billions of dollars of revenue is lost on unexpired parking meters," Scrivner said, noting how drivers often dodge into a newly opened space to take advantage of time left on a meter.

Scrivener praised the quality of White's work force, who, he said have a "farm work ethic" of the type coveted by many large corporations.

He said many people in Sweet Home know how to work hard and don't expect perqs and benefits that employees in other communities consider non-negotiable.

"Our people work hard," he said. "They want to be part of something that's great, not good. They all believe in it, from the lowest to the top."

New Finds Software

MrMetalDetector — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:09:37 GMT

Metal Detecting Treasure Hunter Releases Software

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

Arizona treasure hunter releases inventory database for the Gold and Coin hunter/collector.

Tucson, AZ (PRWEB) June 23, 2007 -- Scott Taylor, a metal detector and treasure hunter in Tucson, Arizona decided there had to be an easier way to keep track of his Gold, Coin and Meteorite finds.

The "Nugget Shooters Logbook" software program for Windows was created as an industry first to help collectors organize their inventory and keep extremely accurate records...even ones the IRS and Insurance companies consider acceptable. The program allows importation of up to four images per record; has a slide show feature; reports; scan; search by location or catalog number; one click current spot rates and more. Available as D/L or on Disc, retail price is listed at $27.95

For more information on the "Nugget Shooters Logbook" log on to http://www.treasure-hunting-info.com/logbook or contact Scott.

richest shipwreck treasure in history

MrMetalDetector — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:57:30 GMT

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- Deep-sea explorers said Friday they have mined what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing home 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins from an undisclosed site in the Atlantic Ocean. Estimated value: $500 million.

A jet chartered by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration landed in the United States recently with hundreds of plastic containers brimming with coins raised from the ocean floor, Odyssey co-chairman Greg Stemm said. The more than 500,000 pieces are expected to fetch an average of $1,000 each from collectors and investors.

"For this colonial era, I think (the find) is unprecedented," said rare coin expert Nick Bruyer, who examined a batch of coins from the wreck. "I don't know of anything equal or comparable to it."

Citing security concerns, the company declined to release any details about the ship or the wreck site Friday. Stemm said a formal announcement will come later, but court records indicate the coins might come from a 400-year-old ship found off England.

Because the shipwreck was found in a lane where many colonial-era vessels went down, there is still some uncertainty about its nationality, size and age, Stemm said, although evidence points to a specific known shipwreck. The site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country, he said.

"Rather than a shout of glee, it's more being able to exhale for the first time in a long time," Stemm said of the haul, by far the biggest in Odyssey's 13-year history.

He wouldn't say if the loot was taken from the same wreck site near the English Channel that Odyssey recently petitioned a federal court for permission to salvage.

In seeking exclusive rights to that site, an Odyssey attorney told a federal judge last fall that the company likely had found the remains of a 17th-century merchant vessel that sank with valuable cargo aboard, about 40 miles off the southwestern tip of England. A judge signed an order granting those rights last month.

In keeping with the secretive nature of the project dubbed "Black Swan," Odyssey also isn't talking yet about the types, denominations and country of origin of the coins.

Bruyer said he observed a wide range of varieties and dates of likely uncirculated currency in much better condition than artifacts yielded by most shipwrecks of a similar age.

The Black Swan coins -- mostly silver pieces -- likely will fetch several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars each, with some possibly commanding much more, he said. Value is determined by rarity, condition and the story behind them.

Controlled release of the coins into the market along with their expected high value to collectors likely will keep prices at a premium, he said.

The richest ever shipwreck haul was yielded by the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. Treasure-hunting pioneer Mel Fisher found it in 1985, retrieving a reported $400 million in coins and other loot.

Odyssey likely will return to the same spot for more coins and artifacts.

"We have treated this site with kid gloves and the archaeological work done by our team out there is unsurpassed," Odyssey CEO John Morris said. "We are thoroughly documenting and recording the site, which we believe will have immense historical significance."

The news is timely for Odyssey, the only publicly traded company of its kind.

The company salvaged more than 50,000 coins and other artifacts from the wreck of the SS Republic off Savannah, Georgia, in 2003, making millions. But Odyssey posted losses in 2005 and 2006 while using its expensive, state-of-the-art ships and deep-water robotic equipment to hunt for the next mother lode.

"The outside world now understands that what we do is a real business and is repeatable and not just a lucky one shot deal," Stemm said. "I don't know of anybody else who has hit more than one economically significant shipwreck."

In January, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.

Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins to buy the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. Odyssey believes those coins could also fetch more than $500 million.

But under the terms of a historic agreement Odyssey will have to share any finds with the British government. The company will get 80 percent of the first $45 million and about 50 percent of the proceeds thereafter.

Atlantic City Beach Bans Detecting

MrMetalDetector — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:18:43 GMT

LBI merchants hope beach closure doesn't dig into bottom line

By DONNA WEAVER Staff Writer, (609) 978-2015

Published: Friday, April 27, 2007

Tony Grasso displays the stock of pails and shovels that the Wave Hog Surf Shop in Ship Bottom carries.The question is,will beachgoers be able to use them this season?

Staff photo by Bill Gross

SHIP BOTTOM The sand on the local beaches, and whatever ordnance is buried in it, was sucked up from the ocean floor, pumped through a pipe and shoved around on the beach but officials seem concerned that a child with a plastic shovel might set something off.

After the World War II-era ordnance was found in March, Keith Watson, project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said it would take a lot to set one off, although for safety's sake, the corps wanted to make sure all of it was removed.

Nonetheless, Ship Bottom Mayor William Huelsenbeck announced at a Borough Council meeting Tuesday that children may not be allowed to dig in the sand with their shovels once the beaches are open, and metal-detecting may be forbidden.

Tony Grasso works for his son Mark, owner of the Wave Hog Surf Shop in Ship Bottom. On Thursday afternoon, the store smelled of new rubber from a shipment of beach clogs, shoes and sweet surf wax. Boxes of toy sand shovels and towers of buckets lined the floor of the store. Grasso shook his head as he spoke of the possible ban on digging in the sand.

Grasso said he couldn't get very concerned about the munitions, because they're 60 years old and were underwater for a long time.

He does quite a business in here, but if the people don't come, I don't know. Believe it or not, we have business in May. A lot of people who rent their houses out in the summer come down next month, Grasso said.

The Exit 63 Wearhouse, formerly Beach Nutz, located in Surf City, is a short walk from the Wave Hog. Sand toys and beach gear fill the store where owner Joe Muzzillo also makes custom T-shirts.

Although toys for digging in the sand are not a big part of the Wearhouse's sales, Muzzillo said, it's always a draw, since people come in for sand toys and buy something else.

We're coming out with a bomb-squad line, Muzzillo said. We're making up T-shirts, stickers and hats that say Surf City' across the front and Bomb Squad' on the back. I wore one the other day, and people were asking if I was from the bomb squad.

Absolutely, I'm concerned, but it is what it is and we're trying to make the best of it, Muzzillo said.

I think if we can get the beaches open and people on them, we can show that they're safe. Once the beaches open there is a comfort level that will transpire, said Rick Reynolds, director of the Southern Ocean County Chamber of Commerce.

But Reynolds said he can understand why local businesses would be concerned about the closed beaches.

I guess I could understand a ban on metal detecting to not encourage searching for these things. But I think they're probably just making sure it's safe. It's highly unlikely to see an issue of injury, Reynolds said. It's been a hard time for the business owners because they have not been able to physically see the beaches being opened.

Meanwhile, portions of Ship Bottom and Surf City beaches will not be reopened today as had been projected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers one week ago.

A status report dated April 20 and posted on the state Department of Environmental Protection Web site states that the corps would be ready to open two taper areas from a technical standpoint by April 27. Those areas include South Seventh to South Third streets in Ship Bottom and North 25th to North 21st streets in Surf City.

Karen Hershey, a spokeswoman for the DEP, said Thursday that the department was provided with the report from the corps.

Corps spokesman Khaalid Walls said Thursday afternoon that opening portions of the beaches today was not going to happen.

The discovery of military munitions on the beaches last month contributed to the delay of the beach-replenishment project's completion. Walls said last week that 108 munitions have been found from Surf City and Ship Bottom beaches combined 29 more items than the previous week.

Walls could not give a breakdown as to how many of the munitions were found in Ship Bottom.

Walls said that from a technical standpoint, portions of beach in Surf City and Ship Bottom are clear. However, the beaches cannot reopen without regulatory concurrence, an agreement on land-use controls and the consensus of all stakeholders, Walls said.

Those stakeholders, according to Walls, include the corps, the DEP, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Surf City and Ship Bottom.

So far, we haven't been able to accommodate everyone and have the meeting in order to reopen the beaches, Wall said. This is not really a setback; we're just in the process of coordinating those meetings.

Walls said the goal for reopening the beaches is still Memorial Day weekend a month from today.

If it could be earlier, it will be, but safety is our main concern, Walls said.

Staff writer Rob Spahr contributed to this report.