>And the very sensible answer was that a law prohibiting the ownership of old objects would mainly have the effect that people fearing discovery would destroy t

>And the very sensible answer was that a law prohibiting the ownership of old objects would mainly have the effect that people fearing discovery would destroy their antiquities, simultaneously removing all evidence of any putative crime and preventing anyone from ever learning anything from what used to be a (semi-)valuable artifact. If the owner had a record of exactly where it had been taken from, what other objects were found alongside it (and where those objects were now) and other contextual information then it would implicate whoever dug it up in the first place, which in most places is a crime. You could argue that maybe we should make it a crime to excavate or sell an artefact without that record and make the actual digging legal. That would probably run into some issues of practicality though.