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For the File, Steve: Blah Blah Blah Roman Sword Blah Blah Libel Blah Blah Copyright Blah Blah

12/26/2015

 
I've stepped back a bit from Swordgate over Christmas. We've got family in town and there really are much better things to put energy into this time of year.  The story isn't going away, however, and I'm not either.  I've got more to say about the "100% percent confirmed" artifact that J. Hutton Pulitzer and the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society  say will "rewrite history."  While most of that will have to wait until after I'm done with the chaos that emerges in a household stocked with three kids and three grandparents, I wanted to jot down a few things for the record.

Anyone who has been threatened with legal action by Pulitzer (which may or may not be a significant portion of the readership of this blog) will immediately understand the title of this post. My mom reads and comments on my blog sometimes. I hope she will not soon start getting cease and desist notices.

Anyway, I had a bizarre email exchange with Pulitzer (who CC's his correspondence to his lawyer, Steve) after the post I wrote pointing out that a British Museum image of a Roman shield boss was tagged with a copyright mark for InvestigatingHistory.org in the Daily Mail story about the "Roman sword." I started by telling Pulitzer that, since he clearly was claiming copyright over an image he did not own, I no longer trusted his assertion that he actually owned the photos of the sword that he forbid me to use. He first assured me that his copyright mark was not on the photo:
PictureThe image of a Roman shield (not from Nova Scotia) still shown in the Daily Mail story with InvestigatingHistory.org's copyright mark.
"Please be clear, InvestigatingHistory.org supplied a sample educational photo of a shield boss for illustrative purposes and it is not marked or filed copyright by InvestigationHistory.org and your reporting of such is incorrect and should be corrected. . . .  Your reporting that we assert copyright and such is wrong . . ." 

I told him that he should check the photo, as there really was a copyright mark there.

"Andy, there is no copyright mark, it is an attribution of who provided."

I told him that the little "c" with the circle around it means "copyright," and he should look at the image.

He then told me that I was not a lawyer (which I knew) and instructed Steve to send me a "notice to cease and desist that we are asserting such claims when WE DID NOT put the mark there." Eventually, apparently, he finally looked at the image and did verify to his own satisfaction that it contained a copyright mark of InvestigatingHistory.org. How that somehow became my fault, I do not know. He asserted that the Daily Mail had put the same mark on all the images in the story, which was not true (there are copyright marks on all the photos, but they are of several different organizations). Eventually he ended the conversation by thanking me and saying

"we have requested the attribution be changed on several points:
1. This is a representative photo
2. This is not THE shield boss found
3. I am not the finder of the boss."


That's all well and good, but as of this writing the image and the caption in the Daily Mail story is exactly the same (i.e., with InvestigatingHistory.org's copyright mark) as it was on December 21 (five days ago). This tells us two things, I think: (1) the Daily Mail's procedure for fact-checking stories that they publish is either non-existent or very poor; and (2) Pulitzer's pull with the media is not even of sufficient weight to compel an edit to fix an error in a published story. It's really pretty sad.

And that brings us to the next "development:" a Christmas day rant, the main thrust of which seemed to be "if you don't believe in the Roman sword, the terrorists win." I confess that I have not read the whole thing in detail (it was obvious that Pulitzer wrote it himself, which, while more admirable than some of his blog posts that are copied-and-pasted directly from Wikipedia, makes it difficult to follow). He seems to be crying conspiracy and saying that you should trust him more than someone who actually knows something about the subject matter he claims to be "rewriting."

"Give the sword to a local College and University Archaeology, Anthropology or History Department and ask them to evaluate it and they say “Most likely a trinket or copy bought in the 18th century and brought back on a ship and accidentally dropped overboard”."


This is oddly specific, and it makes me think that he already knows that it is going to happen.  I don't think he has a crystal ball, however. My guess is that he knows that someone already looked at the sword (probably in connection with The Curse of Oak Island) and probably said that very thing.  And that's probably what will end up on television.  There's another falsifiable hypothesis for you - we'll see if I'm right or not.

Pulitzer then continues on his quest to beat up straw men and dodge the real questions, arguing that no-one would drop such a valuable sword in shallow water without retrieving it.  This is ridiculous and moot, since (1) we really have no proof the sword was actually found in the water and (2) it probably wasn't that valuable at the time it was purchased anyway (my guess is the 1800's). He has provided no independent evidence that there's a Roman shipwreck out there, and the only provenience information we've been given so far is "someone said their relative pulled it out of the water a while ago." That's not enough, and I'm going to need to see much more before I accept that this sword came from an underwater context that means anything.

It's possible he says something else new in the post, but I wouldn't know since I haven't read it that carefully. Maybe he attributes some new magical powers to the sword in addition to its capacity to point north. Maybe once he finds all ten swords he can put them all together and gain control over Castle Grayskull.

Finally, today Pulitzer wrote this strange post claiming that people who are skeptical of him are banding together to attack him:

"When investigating the connection, one can see the orchestrated attack by by an archaeologist and a blogger who both attack ALL FINDS and all individuals which write, recover or rediscover lost history which does not fall in line with the “approved party line”."

It does not surprise me that Pulitzer's definition of "investigating" entails clicking to see who follows who on Twitter. The archaeologist he's referring to is me.  Jason Colavito and I correspond occasionally (and I read his blog daily). I don't know who "Maleficent" is (just like many of the people I follow on Twitter), and I don't know any of the other whopping nine (9) followers of this person.  I'm not orchestrating anything with them.

What Pulitzer doesn't seem to understand is that it's evidence that matters. During our email exchange about the Roman shield boss image, he asked me why I was so skeptical of the sword. I didn't bother to respond. I think I've been very clear about the reasons for my skepticism.  I just don't believe there's any compelling reason to think the thing is a genuine Roman artifact. Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter what I believe: it's what I (or anyone else) can demonstrate. I have laid out some very clear expectations for my sword hypothesis, any one of which Pulitzer could prove wrong if he had the evidence to do so. He has chosen not to engage on those points, but instead write diatribes about being a warrior and blah blah blah, libel blah blah blah, copyright blah blah blah, etc.

People who have evidence and an understanding of what it means use it. Those who don't . . . blah blah blah.
​

M.
12/27/2015 01:30:05 am

Hi Andy,

I've sent an email to you about the "Swordgate", with a subject " Something that you may want to take a look" (mailbox.sc.edu). Did you receive? :o)

Mike Jones
12/27/2015 10:30:58 am

Care to share it with the rest of us?

M.
12/27/2015 11:05:06 am

Hi Mike,

Yep, I'll have no problem in sharing it, believe me. I really don't know whether it's something really interesting or not. So, that's the reason I've sent an email to Andy, 'cause I don't want to quote something that may sound stupid. I think we have something interesting, but I'm not sure :o)

Andy White
12/27/2015 12:14:08 pm

I don't see it- it may have gotten swept into my Spam folder (which for some reason my mail app only lets me see once per day). Could you try sending it again and/or send it to my on Facebook?

M.
12/27/2015 12:22:16 pm

Hi Andy,

It's a bit confidential (I've some reasons). Could I write to you by Facebook chat? If so, what's your profile?

M.
12/27/2015 12:27:24 pm

Well, I've sent a request :o)

Mike Morgan
12/27/2015 05:27:22 am

Because as you stated above, and both you and Jason have stated the same in similar wording on other blog posts concerning "Swordgate", "... and the only provenience information we've been given so far is "someone said their relative pulled it out of the water a while ago." That's not enough, and I'm going to need to see much more before I accept that this sword came from an underwater context that means anything.", that Mr. Pulitzer has singled you and Jason out as the "... archaeologist and a blogger .." from among those he perceives as adhering to the “approved party line”.

Well, Mr. Pulitzer may need to expand his list to include none other than Scott Wolter!

In answer to a comment under his "Scott Wolter Answers" empty blog dated "Thursday, December 10, 2015", asking if he read the Boston Standard article:

"Scott Wolter December 23, 2015 at 8:16 AM

Gary,

I've seen the article, but my concern is context. Where did it come from and how do we know for sure. This will be the first questions serious investigators will ask and I'm afraid it'll end up being word of mouth and that's it."

Hmmm, trouble on the fringe?

Bob Jase
12/27/2015 08:17:15 am

"My guess is that he knows that someone already looked at the sword (probably in connection with The Curse of Oak Island) and probably said that very thing. "

My guess is the guy at the flea market JHP bought it from had a good spiel.

Traveller
12/27/2015 06:17:31 pm

Every time I see the sword and hear the story of how it was drug up with a scallop dragger from the cold salt waters off of Nova Scotia I look closer for salt water corrosion which would have eaten it if it was there for 1500+ years.

Wish in 1 hand and fill the other with HP's bullshit and see which fills up faster.

Killbuck
12/27/2015 07:04:09 pm

I am reporting, that I am in possession of a Mayan polychrome effigy, which was found off the coast of Nova Scotia in the vicinity of Oak Island. The artifact proves Mayans used Oak Island as a base and scared off the Romans, causing them to drop their sword while fleeing. The 100% confirmed artifact was found by a close friend of a cousin of mine's ex girlfriend's grandfather but when, I don't know. There is also evidence of a sunken Mayan pyramid in shallow water out there somewhere. Instead of posting a photo of the artifact, I will soon post a photo I lifted from the Field Museum, and will put my copyright on it, because everyone will already know the photo is just for illustrative purposes. Just sayin.

Andy White
12/27/2015 07:36:41 pm

Your views make me nervous, but I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Just sayin'.

Mike Jones
12/28/2015 09:16:31 am

https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/6669291/il_570xN.306175361.jpg

Traveller
12/29/2015 06:48:05 am

This proves my space Martian - Mi'kmaw theory. Those aren't 80 year old dock pilings, they're spacecraft landing pads!

Ken
12/28/2015 11:25:42 am

Hutton has shared his story or related posts a couple times in the Facebook group "Metal Detecting in Canada", to which I've replied a number of times with the concerns I've seen here and elsewhere about the sword and his other work.

A few days ago he posted a link in the group to an audio file or podcast. Although I didn't listen to the file, I commented on how conspiratorial the text of his post was... "the battle for your mind", "how to talk to your friends about the discovery", etc. In my opinion trying to manipulate amateur treasure hunters, or others who may lack the critical thinking skills to properly judge his work, into supporting him without good evidence.

Upon replying to that post, he appears to have blocked me. I made a new post in the group where others replied that they could still see his posts.

... Because I guess that's how Science works apparently, when you can't back your claims, manipulate the ignorant to support you, and block people who won't fall for it hehe.

Maleficent
12/28/2015 07:14:24 pm

Maleficent here to let you all in on a little secret: the reason that blog post on Medium, cited in the article, is no longer allowing comments is because another individual and I made comments that that guy didn't care for. My comment was, in part, "oh bravo, using mind games to warn your minions of the mind games of 'the enemy.'" It was immediately after that that he posted that drivel about orchestrated attacks. Having dealt with him previously, and being acquainted with some that he's currently attacking, I can tell you, with a high degree of certainty, that this is not going to end.


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