Graveyard detecting. Yea or Nay

[Ammoman]

Well, they say shipwrecks are grave yards and we turn those graves upside down to find a single piece of eight. Lets not forget battlefields where we covet those buttons and buckles and personal items of soldiers lost to war.

I guess its how you look at it. So, only you can decide if detecting a lost or forgotten grave site is within your boundaries of morality.

 

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[Escape]

If you bring a friend don't let him read incantations out of a book. That always leads to trouble. You can learn all kinds of stuff watching movies.

 

[Honest Samuel]

Never years dig around graveyard, but if the yard is over 200 years old, dig around the graves, and the paths.

 

[Escape]

Never years dig around graveyard, but if the yard is over 200 years old, dig around the graves, and the paths.

Now we're getting somewhere. The 200 year rule. Do I hear 150? Anyone, 150? Going, going, SOULED to the guy with the horns standing in the back.
( No joking. Watch the movies. ) lol

 

[creskol]

Detecting in a cemetery could have grave consequences.

 

[gollum]

Well, they say shipwrecks are grave yards and we turn those graves upside down to find a single piece of eight. Lets not forget battlefields where we covet those buttons and buckles and personal items of soldiers lost to war.

I guess its how you look at it. So, only you can decide if detecting a lost or forgotten grave site is within your boundaries of morality.

A good point, but I think (for me) the cutoff point would be the location. An actual consecrated graveyard is my cutoff. A battlefield or shipwreck doesn't give me the same kind of gut knot a cemetery does.

Mike

 

[whistler84]

If you did do it, you have to sleep with this on your conscience, and imagine if you will, you were to say....found something arguably awesome there....could you live with yourself knowing where you found it? How bad it would eat at you to tell the story of how it was foud, only to be looked down upon for what you had perpetrated.

 

[Noah_D]

Just don't... please. I would say that it would not be as bad to dig up coins left after the persons burial (like not digging where they are buried, or for coins and jewelry left WITH the body for burial) and not get anywhere near the bodies but thats not what onlookers would see. And I would not want anyone digging up or destroying the graves of my family members. Even if they've been dead for a few hundred years. SO... my opinion is no.

 

[Jason in Enid]

LOL, the replies to this question are always so predictable and hilarious.

 

[alaskaseeker]

NO.. Very near my home in Ak, close to thr Copper River there is a 1898 Stampeder graveyard.. I used to try and keep it up, but the wilds have almosst reclaimed it. These folks had hopes, dreams, of wealth for themselves and families and they ended up in this small graveyard from illness, or an accident of some kind.. Probably lost to their families that never heard from them again.. I say to them RIP...you deserved better, but you did your best.......

 

[Mekong Mike]

The sight of someone digging in a cemetery is negative no matter what good intentions the treasure hunters has.

 

[Force_of_Iron]

Well this thread sure generated a lot of interest, LOL.

Everyone racing to say no.

If someone comes in here and says yes and tries to justify it this thread will go off the hook. It will break the courtesy dam that everyone is honoring by not crushing the original poster.

 

[gunsil]

Hunt where ya wanna hunt, don't let others' morals affect your judgement, it is up to you. There are plenty of folks who detect in old cemeteries and plenty who don't. It is illegal to hunt most historical sites but permission can be had for hunting cemeteries, there are no laws against it. I have watched a couple of old cemeteries get bulldozed for housing developments, bones all over the place, nobody cared they did that. In Europe where there are more people than land they lease gravesites and when the lease is up, the bones get exhumed and put helter skelter in catacombs and a new body is buried in the same hole. These folks are also Christian for the most part and it is just normal for them. Y'all are welcome to come detect over my burial site anytime you like. Maybe I'll even get my sister to bury a few silver coins a few inches deep.

 

[Force_of_Iron]

Hunt where ya wanna hunt, don't let others' morals affect your judgement, it is up to you. There are plenty of folks who detect in old cemeteries and plenty who don't. It is illegal to hunt most historical sites but permission can be had for hunting cemeteries, there are no laws against it. I have watched a couple of old cemeteries get bulldozed for housing developments, bones all over the place, nobody cared they did that. In Europe where there are more people than land they lease gravesites and when the lease is up, the bones get exhumed and put helter skelter in catacombs and a new body is buried in the same hole. These folks are also Christian for the most part and it is just normal for them. Y'all are welcome to come detect over my burial site anytime you like. Maybe I'll even get my sister to bury a few silver coins a few inches deep.

Testing the waters with a toe? The next poster will up the ante and suggest going in with a backhoe. The wall has been breached.

 

[Billieg]

I know of a few graveyards going back to the late 1600's abandoned in the woods. I could easily hunt them and "get away with it". But I would know and I don't feel right about doing it. There are enough other places to detect, including many where burying grounds have been plowed under and forgotten. How would you feel about someone digging where your family was buried?

You know, they are buried 6' down. No one detecting is going to find them. It's not grave robbing. I have detected a few graveyards and found some good finds. Each to his own but I think it's stupid to think you are doing something wrong. So now flame me....

 

[Billieg]

Testing the waters with a toe? The next poster will up the ante and suggest going in with a backhoe. The wall has been breached.

Off your meds ah.....

 

[Duckshot]

Flame you, Billieg?

Um, your mama wears combat boots!

I don't metal detect. But, I do know the rules. If you don't own the property you need permission from the property owner.

So I'd have no qualms about sweeping round a fresh hole with permission from the owner. People lose jewelry and change when they are grieving. But keeping those still with us in mind I'd need to try to return anything found especially if it appeared freshly dropped.

Should be easy to find family or friends of the departed, if should you find any of their belongings.

 

[firemanphob]

Ok, my two cents. No, Negative, Not even. When you pay for a cemetery plot you own the lot and pay for the upkeep of it. No body else has the right to give permission to dig on it.
As for the 6 ft. deep, a lot of people in past years were not buried that deep. I have a son that died when he was 4 1/2 years old and my mother is buried in the next lot at our church cemetery. We go pay our respects every Sunday after church. I also do some volunteer work in cemeteries. If I ever saw anyone metal detecting in our cemetery, the few coins would not be worth the whooping they would receive. There are plenty of places to detect without defiling graves.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

I gotta say no as well, because you can never know if what you found was accidentally dropped, or deliberately left there. If what you find was deliberately left there, it wasn’t put there for you to find, it was left for someone else.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Duckshot]

Ok, my two cents. No, Negative, Not even. When you pay for a cemetery plot you own the lot and pay for the upkeep of it. No body else has the right to give permission to dig on it.
As for the 6 ft. deep, a lot of people in past years were not buried that deep. I have a son that died when he was 4 1/2 years old and my mother is buried in the next lot at our church cemetery. We go pay our respects every Sunday after church. I also do some volunteer work in cemeteries. If I ever saw anyone metal detecting in our cemetery, the few coins would not be worth the whooping they would receive. There are plenty of places to detect without defiling graves.

I respect your position Firemanphob, but consider the property rights.

As a matter of fact, if someone gives me permission to m.d. their grandmother's gravesite, I think I'd be obliged to. I would also be obliged to try to determine ownership and to return any property found. Determining ownership would be real easy in only one respect- it ain't mine.