> If it were legal to sell such artifacts, museums and collectors around the world could bid up the prices, making them much more profitable than the iron ore R

> If it were legal to sell such artifacts, museums and collectors around the world could bid up the prices, making them much more profitable than the iron ore Rio Tinto could otherwise extract, strongly motivating them toward recovery. Unless they weren't. Then they'd be blown up anyway, except we'd perceive a moral right for them to do so, and it would be harder to fight back against the practice.