Can I collect the national treasures (Ding bronzes) excavated from my foundation? Is it illegal to take it for yourself? What should I do?
According to the provisions of the Cultural Relics Law, unearthed and flooded cultural relics belong to the state. Therefore, it is illegal to take the cultural relics belonging to the country as your own through grave robbery, but it is not illegal to dig up cultural relics unintentionally on your own foundation. If the cultural relics department wants to take back the handling of this matter, it will hand it over to the state. If it doesn't, it will be collected by itself. Whether there is a cultural relics department is related to their attention and understanding. If they think things are nothing, they don't want them; On the other hand, even if it's precious, they don't think it's genuine, or even think it's forged by you and buried underground, so they don't want it. The understanding of cultural relics by cultural relics departments is a common problem at present. For example, you dug up the country's imperial seal in your own foundation, which is the most precious cultural relic, but its shape and text obviously do not match the traditional legend. If you give it to the state, experts in the cultural relics department will say that you deliberately forged and deceived the state.