Der Entdeckeranteil an einem nicht ausgegrabenen fränkischen Gräberfeld (OLG Frankfurt am Main, Urteil vom 20.08.2013 – 11 U 113/12) – Fluch und Segen für den Finder

Abstract

The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt/Main pronounced the sentence of 20.08.2013 – 11 U 113/12 that a volunteer of the cultural heritage preservation department have the claim of estate on all non excavated corpus of finds existing in a pre-medieval burial ground he located. There are a lot of sentences by German courts which confirmed as well the claim of property of a finder of archaeological artefacts. But theses sentences affected isolated corpus of finds in a limited area. The discussed sentence of 2013 is special because it widen out the claim of a huge areal and an undefined number of artefacts. Also it ignored the fact that the finder was a volunteer of the cultural heritage preservation department and prospected the affected area in charge of that department. So the location of the burial ground was a result of a planed prospection in charge of the department. According to German law this facts give good reasons to deny the claim.