Most people inherently accept nowadays that it is wrong to take pieces of ancient artefacts home. Throughout history, there are always people who have been ignorant (whether knowingly or unknowingly) of such rules (whether they are written or unwritten). Nowadays, those that are ignorant of these rules invariably have to face the consequences when they are found out.

From:
Globe & Mail (Boston)

How to avoid a $17,000 souvenir
Some travellers are ignorant. Others blatant ‘touristic vandals.’ Either way, picking up a rock of ages can cost you – or make your next hotel a jail cell. Dave McGinn reports on the problem of protocol
DAVE MCGINN
June 4, 2008 at 10:20 AM EDT

All Madelaine Gierc wanted was to be in a photograph. Instead, she wound up at the centre of an international incident.

During a trip to Greece in 2005, the then-16-year-old student from Duncan, B.C., picked up a rock on a path near the Parthenon and was promptly arrested, charged and jailed. Under the country’s protection laws, it is illegal to buy, sell, own or excavate antiquities without a special permit – a crime that carries a maximum 10-year sentence. She claimed, however, that she only intended to use the rock as a prop in a photo and was released after two days in an Athens jail.
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