What’s the position of treasure trove in German law? It’s a bit strange. There are rules in the Civil Code relating to Schatzfund (section 984).

Wird eine Sache, die so lange verborgen gelegen hat, daß der Eigentümer nicht mehr zu ermitteln ist (Schatz), entdeckt und infolge der Entdeckung in Besitz genommen, so wird das Eigentum zur Hälfte von dem Entdecker, zur Hälfte von dem Eigentümer der Sache erworben, in welcher der Schatz verborgen war.

In Simon Goren’s translation:

If a thing is discovered which has remained hidden so long that the owner can no longer be ascertained (treasure), and it is taken in to [sic] possession as a result of the discovery, one half of the ownership is acquired by the discoverer, and the other half by the owner of the property in which the treasure was hidden.

The definition here is very broad. It is just necessary for something to have been hidden (as opposed to lost) for it to be treasure trove. I suppose no-one would take legal action if they find a secret chewing gum cache, though. The division into two halves goes back to Emperor Hadrian.

However, this Civil Code section is rarely applied, because there is something in Land law called Schatzregal, and the Länder also have rules governing the kind of treasure that ends up in museums – I suppose because cultural and educational affairs and thus museums are the matter of the Länder.

Schatzregal has nothing to do with bookcases, as I used to think. There are two words Regal in German, with different etymologies. One means a bookcase, and the other means a sovereign right, usually with some economic value, originally a right of the king or local rules and later a right of the state. This word is related to the English adjective regal. The big Muret-Sanders (Langenscheidt) dictionary translates it as regale, regality, royal prerogative, royalty. Walker’s Oxford Companion to Law says that treasure trove belongs ‘by prerogative right’ to the Crown. The OED doesn’t confirm this meaning of regale; it’s just possible that ‘regalities’ would work, but I think ‘prerogative’ is more widely known. Apparently in the 13th-c. Sachsenspiegel, every treasure that lies deeper in the earth than a plough reaches belongs to the king (see a useful review of a book on the topic, in German, with links).

If something is defined as a Kulturdenkmal (historical monument, but this includes movable property), then Land law will govern. It varies in its definitions and in its results. I have the impression that Schatzregal does not apply in Bavaria and that in Länder where it does apply, treasure trove goes to the Land government without compensation.

There’s a discussion of the law of treasure or treasure trove in Britain at an archaeological site here. The problem with law in this area is making it strict enough, but not so strict that no finds are reported. This is a question raised by the Sky Disk. Was the Saxony-Anhalt law too restrictive? The law on this point in Germany varies from Land to Land, in Britain from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Before 1996, treasure trove meant items of gold and silver that had been hidden by an untraceable owner. It belonged to the Crown, but the finder would usually be paid the full value. Coroners, as the officers of the Crown, were responsible in treasure trove disputes and are still responsible for treasure.

According to the article mentioned above, at the Current Archaeology site:

bq. Why then was the English system so successful? The first, and most important aspect is that it is limited – limited only to gold and silver (and now some bronze coins). This means first that it can be policed: the British Museum tries to track down all finds of gold and silver and is remarkably successful in its endeavours; yet this would be quite impossible if they were to try to track down all archaeological finds.

bq. It also means that the vast majority of finds made by archaeologists fall outside the system: and the local archaeological society and independent archaeologist can pursue their investigations without officialdom breathing down their necks (as happens in Scotland: which is one of the reasons why there are few active archaeological societies in Scotland).

The Scottish system is different, and so is the new English system (actually for England and Wales and Northern Ireland) under the http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1996/96024–a.htm#1.

I just learnt a new word – detectorist. Two of the Saxony-Anhalt defendants are detectorists – people who use metal detectors. Here’s a detectorist contract.

(Via Handakte WebLAWg, with German links) The Sky Disc of Nebra may be the world’s oldest chart of the cosmos. It’s every bit as important as Stonehenge, and at the same time a lot more portable.

The disc, unearthed by treasure hunters in Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, in 1999, weighs two kilos and is 32 cm. in diameter. It is embossed with gold stars, sun or full moon, and crescent moon, and two curved shapes that may represent boats, for in the Bronze Age it was thought that the sun travelled from west to east at night in a boat. Originally the bronze was rubbed with rotten egg, which reacted with the bronze to give a deep violet colour. Even green with verdigris as it is now, it is a beautiful object and might be thought a fake. But scientific examinations have proved beyond doubt that it dates from approximately 1600 B.C., 400 years after Stonehenge. The latest research information and pictures can be obtained at this site in Halle (in German). Here are some pictures with an English text.

The disc has led to two proceedings: civil proceedings about marketing rights, and criminal proceedings against the men who found the disc and allegedly illegally removed it from its site (it was recovered only after painstaking police investigation and arrests at the Hilton Hotel in Basle). The criminal proceedings start tomorrow at the Naumburg Amtsgericht, the lowest level of court. The defendants are four men and a woman aged between 21 and 64. The defence is apparently arguing that the disc was found in Bavaria or the Czech Republic, where the law relating to finders is different.

The civil proceedings started at the Magdeburg Landgericht, the higher court of first instance, on August 28th. According to a report in NGZ-online, the case is the first of its kind. The Land Saxony-Anhalt, the owner of the disc,
is suing the town of Querfurt, near Nebra. The mayor of Querfurt had terms including “Himmelsscheibe von Nebra” (Nebra Sky Disc) registered as trade marks so that only Querfurt can use these terms for marketing purposes.

I reported once on the Berlin interpreter trial. Recently it came to an end. On August 28th Richard Schneider reported it. The main defendant, Kemal E., was convicted of 47 cases of professional fraud and sentenced him to four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.

The story can be found in the archives of Richard Schneider’s Nachrichtenportal (news portal) at www.uebersetzer-portal.info. The site uses frames, so I can’t give an exact link.

Richard Schneider does always find interesting news, I presume from direct contacts. On September 5th he cited a small article in BerlinOnline , a note in the Berliner Zeitung by Johannes Gernert, describing some journalists attempting to translate ‘Tony Blair sexed up the report’: ‘Journalisten sind eben doch Übersetzer.’

Meanwhile, someone reminded me that Robin Stocks, at the Bonner Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherforum (Bonn forum for translators and interpreters), runs a weblog with news for and from members. I remember when I was first toying with the idea of starting a weblog looking at Robin’s source code and noticing this.

According to yesterday’s Pforzheimer Zeitung, I am told (thanks, Derek!), the Low German word Läägeünnerloage is to be registered as a utility model (Gebrauchsmuster – does not exist in the UK at the moment).

Das plattdeutsche Wort Läägeünnerloage wird doch als Gebrauchsmuster eingetragen.

To search the Pforzheimer Zeitung archives, you have to register and then wait for details by email. I’m still waiting.

Anyway, the Bremen lawyer Klaus Göken represented Twistringer RBM Dränfilter GmbH, who created a sort of biodegradable mat for cattle to lie on. The High German term would be Liegeunterlage (literally lying-underlay), but Twistringer wanted the local dialect version. The German Patent Office refused it, and Göken took it all the way to the Federal Court of Justice, which sent it back to the Patent Office.

The first application was made in Low German in February 2000. There is a provision in German law that the language of the courts is German, so the question arose as to whether Low German is German.

I found an English summary of the beginning of the case (starts on page 6, and the document contains more information about minority languages in Germany). According to this, a second application in High German was accepted:

bq. In its defense the office reasoned that had the Lower German version
been accepted, a precedent would have been set, leading to an
unavoidable abundance of applications in other dialects and minority
languages; this would make official procedures incomprehensible.
The office reiterated that the administrative language and that of the
court must be “an understandable form of German, that is High
German”. However, Göken is planning to address the jury in Lower
German.

Did Göken address the jury (what jury?!? some translator slipped up here, I fear) in Lower German? The Pforzheimer Zeitung, far from the Plattdeutsch lands, is silent.

Here is a brief dpa report (in German) dated September 3rd. The above page on Klaus Göken in German. A report from the Institute for the Low German Language (in High German). The Pforzheimer Zeitung, but not the link in question. And something in English about utility models in Germany.

The item itself has been almost forgotten in all this language disputing. It is selling very well, creates warmth and there are 10% to 15% fewer deaths among piglets as a result.

I am very late reporting this – the Federal Court of Justice really decided the point last November. Here is a German report from www.jura-lotse.de. It has probably been blogged. Sure enough, here is a report from Handakte WebLAWg.

NOTE: You may really be looking for my other entry on where IKEA gets the names. That’s because my entries were renumbered a couple of years ago and you have followed an old link.

Robert Brady in Blogcritics touches on one of the sad aspects of being an ‘expatriate’: in Japan, he will never eat cherry pie, but even if he goes back to his native land, he will find the cherry pie he once knew has been superseded by food that is supposed to be better for you:

bq. In Japan, after some tofu and broiled fish, for dessert there is perhaps bean paste, inside or outside some white or pink or maybe (whoopee!) green rice paste, or possibly rice crackers with seaweed, maybe an apple slice (be still, my heart!), and people live a few years longer, though it is not clear to me exactly why they would want to do so under such circumstances. It couldn’t be for more dessert.