> this encourages people to destroy these kinds of things whenever they find them on their land.
Totally this.
My former boss owned an old farm house in Italy. He told me that all the neighbours were really worried about digging in their backyards and finding stuff from the Romans.
A neighbour tried to build a house once, the excavator started digging and "old stuff" came up. Somebody told the local police because they were not sure if it was important and immediately the construction site was shut down until the government started to investigate this lot.
Investigations took several years and no compensation was paid.
Since then, it's an unwritten agreement that nobody calls the police when something comes up and the excavator just crashes everything...
Totally this.
My former boss owned an old farm house in Italy. He told me that all the neighbours were really worried about digging in their backyards and finding stuff from the Romans.
A neighbour tried to build a house once, the excavator started digging and "old stuff" came up. Somebody told the local police because they were not sure if it was important and immediately the construction site was shut down until the government started to investigate this lot.
Investigations took several years and no compensation was paid.
Since then, it's an unwritten agreement that nobody calls the police when something comes up and the excavator just crashes everything...