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I've just come back from the sea in a village in Larnaca. It’s an Ancient village and had various settlers from all over the med from all periods. As I was in the sea I was picking up flat stones on the bottom and skimming them for fun and then I pick up some pottery. I was just wondering if anyone in these forums has any idea if they are ancient of modern? I'm guessing they aren’t significant enough for me to be handing over to a museum but if they are I will. They have found alot of ancient archeology mainly near the sea in this village.




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Hard to tell simply from picture, but I guess it could be old, as there is much pttery the greeks made lol so, to come across parts wouldn't be a rare event I wouldn't imagine?

Looking at the semetric(sp) engraved trenches.... I would say it is modern.... If you look at greek pottery of not such modern times...

We see it is quite smooth, ancient greek pottery - Google Image Search and all follows a same kinda pattern, but I am no expert... just my thought.
 
It would be worth simply walking into a museum...if you are handy with words you should be able to talk your way into seeing someone who knows something...

And once you get there, most of them are perfectly willing to tell you how much they know, and you'll get to know what you want to know, ya know?
 
I'm guessing there modern too but who knows. I'm going to keep them in the car so when im passing a museeum I'll go check them out.
 
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These exmaples are Roman.. The village I found the above pottery used to be an imporant major Roman port.
 
A thought...

We have places here like Mt St Helens which blew in 1980 and there are signs around telling people not to pick up lava rocks because if everyone did there would be none left to look at... same thing in petrified forests and even Dinosaur Valley here in TX.. you can get in trouble for taking fossils out of the parks.

So Im wondering for the sake of discussion...

Was it right to take those from that area?

Couldnt you have gotten in trouble for possibly smuggling archeological finds from that area?

Do they belong to that government or should people be allowed to take what they find? Finders Keepers and all?
 
I'd gladly hand these over but say I found something that was worth millions I admit I would have a dilemma. I admire history and archeology is our only connection to it. I think it should be in a place where it can be admired by everyone preferably in its native land.
 
Faithfulservant said:
Couldnt you have gotten in trouble for possibly smuggling archeological finds from that area?
Click to expand...

Well I found them on the sea floor, should I have left them there to get eroded by the sea? I’m still in the same province and they are unidentified to me at the moment.

Juantoo where are you? haha
 
Since they are only fragments, you can probably keep them. However, you might want to check out the area for other stuff, just in case it might be an area for a good archaeological dig. If you do find other stuff, you might want to let the archaeological department of any nearby university know about it.
 
They look like they are fragments from coiled clay pots which would give them some age. All the museums round the med have barrels and barrels of such fragments languishing in their storerooms. I suggest you get a mask and snorkel and see if you can find anything more substantial.
 
Sounds like pretty good advice all around.

I agree being shards and likely shards are plentiful, I doubt there would be any repercussions from keeping them, but I am not familiar with the local laws.

Museums and universities are where you are most likely to find someone who really knows their stuff about this. I'm not an archeologist, and even if I were I don't think I could identify the shards with any certainty without holding them in my hands. Certainly the Mediterranean is loaded with pottery, but if that particular site is exceptionally plentiful it may indicate more than a random find of a shattered pot. Something to keep in mind is that these "ancient" looking pots are also made in fairly recent times, as souvenirs and decorations and in some cases an attempt to deliberately fake expensive pieces.

If the pottery market is anything like the coin market, old Roman and Greek coins are so plentiful, that even their ancient age really doesn't give them much in the way of value, and the relative ease of faking them makes them quite easy to purchase on the secondary market inexpensively. But there is always that unscrupulous dealer looking to hook a novice.

If it were me, and I liked the pieces for their decorative value or sentimental value, I would probably just set them aside as a souvenir to remember my trip to that place, and just consider their "value" secondary. If such finds were quite rare in that general area, or if there were legal complications in keeping them, then I would either leave them there or notify the local archeological authorities and leave the rest to them.

I hope you get to enjoy them. Great find!
 
One of my old tutors of archaeology used to say that if you find fragments of pottery etc on ancient sites you must leave them intact and not move them. Much of archaeology isn't so much about the artifact, but about its situation in an ancient site. This can tell more of a story to an archaeologist. Once artifacts have been moved they are taken out of context and lose much of their meaning to archaeologists. Be careful with what you touch or move on these sites, especially as governments are getting quite tough on people who are caught with artifacts (even if they seem insignificant).
 
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