Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
Is this Pontius Pilate’s ring? First published in 2018, the small copper ring quickly made international headlines with its captivating one-word Greek inscription: ΠΙΛΑΤΟ (Pilato)—the name of Pontius Pilate. While much of the initial news coverage indicated the ring may have belonged to Pilate himself, most scholars were far more cautious, suggesting that it more likely belonged to someone in Pilate’s administration. However, a new study published in the journal ‘Atiqot argues that the ring has no connection to Pontius Pilate at all...
Here is the link for more about that.Pontius Pilate’s Ring Reexamined - Biblical Archaeology Society
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. John 18:38.
As is usually the case, when we find an item, we try to identify it. We attempt to fit it into what we know or think we know. The previously lost item now must be fit into our world. It might fit easily and comfortably or oddly and awkwardly. If it is the latter, it raises new questions, forcing us to grapple with its identify and meaning, and prodding us to rework some level of our understanding as we try to make it fit.
Items that are quickly identified and summarily slide into our world view do not force us to adjust and learn as much as those that do not fit our immediate understanding or eventually give rise to new questions.
The temptation is to see what we hoped to see. We tend to fit more or less ambiguous finds into our hopes and preconceptions. Our hopes and desires influence our perceptions and interpretations.
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When I write about an item like this, it might seem to some that it has nothing to do with metal detecting the Treasure Coast, and it is true that you will probably never find a Pontius Pilate ring on the Treasure Coast, but the more general principles are the same. We attempt to interpret finds very much like the Israeli archaeologists, and we can make the same types of mistakes. We can also learn from their experiences and mistakes.
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I was fortunate to begin metal detecting in a place where targets were plentiful. Even if there weren't a lot of old shipwreck finds, there were a lot of coins and jewelry. I believe that the relatively large number of targets accelerated my learning curve. It is more difficult to identify patterns when there are few data points.
Target distribution patterns are not complex. A coin line, for example, can be long or short, wide or narrow, and vary in depth, although they are most often near the surface. For the most part con lines are three dimensional, but they can also vary in density. The targets can be packed tightly or spread out over a larger area. Of course, a coin line can vary in other ways - for example, the age of the finds. There can also be double lines. I won't get into the details of those now.
Coin lines can also be top heavy or bottom heavy. Top heavy lines are formed when items wash out of the dunes. In that case, items like gold and larger coins will more often be found higher on the slope. Items that are moved more easily will be washed farther down the slope.
Bottom heavy lines are formed when items are washed up onto the beach, and the more easily moved items such as zinc pennies are found higher on the slope and farther from the water line while the gold and larger coins will be nearer or in the water.
If items are washed far enough down the slope and into the water, they can be folded back up onto the lower beach.
Many finds make it easier to identify all those characteristics. You can't tell all of that from just a few coins.
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Easing off the weather a bit today, I'll just give a little of that. We've had a lot of activity in the Atlantic lately, but not with not a lot of erosion on our beaches.
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| Source: SurfGuru.com. |
Here is the latest surf chart from SurfGuru. Looks like we'll have some higher surf this coming Friday.
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov. |
We now have Tropical Storm Nigel. Nigel will probably stay out in the Atlantic very much like Lee.
It doesn't look like it, but hopefully Nigel will do more for us than Lee.
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov. |
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again