DC Dalgliesh

[Troglodyte]

In England such dug finds are property of the Crown, no?

Not just England, the whole of the UK including Scotland.

But the law is for 'treasure' not everything or anything you might find, and is there to prevent people secretly digging up Saxon, Viking or Roman sites, finding 'treasure' in the form of gold and jewels and flogging it off on the black market. Think of the Sutton Hoo find or the bags of Roman gold coins that make the news.

When found items become the property of 'The Crown' by default, it is to put them into state guardianship or protection - the monarch, the government and the people have equal and joint responsibility and custodianship, but none has individual ownership. Being property of the Crown quite importantly protects it from a potentially greedy government.

Laws in the UK are usually the same across the United Kingdom, but the legal system allows for cultural or traditional differences locally - which is why a law might be named slightly differently and suffixed with 'England and Wales' or 'Scotland' accordingly and is restricted to that location. Despite common perception, Scotland has retained much of its pre-union independent identity in the form of laws, currency, public holidays etc.

The treasure-trove laws appear very sensible, in that they protect 'finds' of antiquities of national and historical importance and counter any finders-keepers claims. A centuries-old scrap of tartan in a peat-bog may have little commercial value, but it is priceless to historians - which, as Indiana Jones might rightly say, belongs in a museum.