Estonian archaeologists threaten to end cooperation with culture minister

Photo: Valter Lang

Estonian Culture Minister Rein Lang's decision to give a historical treasure into private hands has angered archaeologists to the extent that they threaten to end all cooperation with the minister, the daily Eesti Paevaleht says.

At the root of the quarrel is a rare find unearthed during digs at the Harju-Risti church some 50 kilometers southeast of Tallinn two years ago - more than one thousand coins the eldest of which date from the 13th century. Similar coins had not been discovered in Estonia previously, but the minister of culture decided to give the hoard to the church. The archaeologists' expert council then sent a letter to the minister and the director general of the National Heritage Board, protesting the decision and threatening to end cooperation.

Although the dispute is centered around the treasure found under the church, archeologists say it's a wider problem. They argue that the minister's position creates a precedent whereby a politician in power can decide at will to whom an archaeological find belongs, the daily says.

Lang based his position on the National Heritage Board's expert study which purportedly says that the hoard is directly connected with the use of the church and that therefore the coins can be regarded as a donation made to and owned by the church. The experts who drew up the report and the archaeologists' council give the text the opposite meaning. In their words, it says that the coins ended up in the ground as sacrificial offerings, which shows that their owners did not want to give them to the church.

Members of the expert council are indignant both at the minister's interpretation of the text and because their opinions have been disregarded. Since cooperation does not work the only solution is to end it in its present form, said Valter Lang (no relation), professor of archaeology at the University of Tartu who chairs the council.

The National Heritage Board's inspector for archaeological heritage Ulla Kadakas said the end of cooperation would be a big loss to the state. «It will be very difficult for the Heritage Board to organize the protection of archaeological heritage if archaeological academe does not agree with it,» she said.

In her view, a precedent could jeopardize the current system that was developed already back in the 1920s according to which archaeological finds belong to the state. «If anyone on whose land something is dug up could lay claim to the finds the accessibility of our archaeological heritage would definitely come under threat,» she told the paper.

The minister of culture emphasized that a final decision will be taken only after the matter has been considered by the parliamentary Cultural Affairs Committee that has the right to provide interpretations of law to the executive branch.

«Firstly, no decision has been made. Secondly, we have the experts' clear position that the find belongs to the Harju-Risti congregation,» Rein Lang told the paper. «The Ministry of Culture understands perfectly that this is a legal debate over the status of the find.» In his words, it is regrettable that the expert council has not studied the problem substantively and is unwilling to understand the congregation who has the constitutional right to protection of ownership.

If the treasure is given to the church the Harju-Risti congregation is prepared to deposit the coins in the Harju County museum where they would be accessible to all, the minister added.