Belong to everyone? That idea of “belong” has no meaning to me. First, 99% of sites will simply NEVER be excavated. It’s almost the whole planet. Areas of long human civilization are everywhere.
Basically imagine excavating everywhere people live today, with a teaspoon. Its really not much less intense than that.
Second, when they finish the site, everything gets cataloged and stored away in a museum or university. Maybe 1% of what they find gets displayed or loaned out.
And Now the movement is for museums to return their finds to the nations where they came from. SO what happens then? We’ve seen at least 4 examples that I can instantly think of. The Buddha statues in Afghanistan blown up by a tank. ISIS destroyed 1800 year old Church that is the tomb of Jonah. The looting of the national Museum in Iraq. The Looting of the museum of antiquities in Egypt. The threats to find a way to destroy the idolatrous pyramids.
In WWII, the German aircraft industry spread their production into a thousand small shops. I just say we should be doing the same with artifacts. They should be in tens of thousands of homes. They would be safer. They would be seen by far more people who loved them. They would probably be just as well understood.
Many if not most amateur collectors and archaeologists are every bit the equals of the university and government paid ones.
this is my official ruling on the matter
I think the antiquities/archaeological finds should stay and be displayed in a country where they are safe from destruction by fanatics-that certainly excludes those countries with governments and people stuck in the 7th century, like Trashcanistan and such.
I do want all the stuff found displayed-it doesn’t belong in a drawer, either. Small private museums are great places-we have a lot of them with wonderful stuff in them-there need to be more, because they proudly display all their stuff. My cousin’s husband went to work for one of those after having taught and conducting digs for a large concern-he was much happier at the smaller place.
I have some arrowheads I’ve found over the years-most people around here do, since all this area is near a river, and was a camping place for the Apaches, Comanches and others. Nobody cares if you have them-they are literally alkl over the rocks on the bank if the river floods.