A Modern Legal History of Treasure

This book examines treasure law and practice from the rise of the new science of archaeology in the early Victorian period to the present day. Drawing on largely-unexamined state records and other archives, the book covers several legal jurisdictions: England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland pre- and post-independence, and post-partition Northern Ireland. From the Mold gold cape (1833) to the Broighter hoard (1896), from Sutton Hoo (1939) to the Galloway hoard (2014), the law of treasure trove, and the Treasure Act 1996, are considered through the prism of notable archaeological discoveries, and from the perspectives of finders, landowners, archaeologists, museum professionals, collectors, the state, and the public. Literally and metaphorically, treasure law is revealed as a ground-breaking chapter in the history of the legal protection of cultural property and cultural heritage in Britain and Ireland.

1. Treasure Trove: Dream and Metaphor.- 2. ‘That Dark Permanence of Ancient Forms’.- 3. Treasure Trove in Early Victorian Ireland and Scotland.- 4. Conversaziones.- 5. Of Angels and Half-Angels.- 6. The View from the Gloriette I.- 7. The View from the Gloriette II.- 8. The Royal Rummager of Dustbins: Scotland, 1859-2003.- 9. ‘Archaeological Objects’: Ireland, 1860-2014; Northern Ireland, 1921-97.- 10. ‘Finding is the First Act’.

Norma Dawson was Professor of Law at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), UK from 1995 to 2019. She is Professor Emeritus at (QUB), an honorary Bencher of the Inn of Court (N.I.), Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, and a past president of the Irish Legal History Society.