Grave robbery, tomb robbing or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects. A related act is body snatching, a term that is related to the taking of one's body (usually not from a grave). Grave Robbery pertains to the disinterring of a grave chiefly for the purpose of stealing a corpse and/or stealing other objects. Grave robbing has caused great difficulty to the study of archaeology, art history, and history. Countless precious grave sites and tombs have been robbed before scholars were able to examine them. In any way – the archaeological context and the historical and anthropological information is destroyed. Looting obliterates the memory of the ancient world and turns its highest artistic creations into decorations, adornments on a shelf, divorced from historical context and ultimately from all meaning. Grave robbers usually sell their goods on the black market. Though some artifacts may make their way to museums or scholars, many end up in private collections.

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