pothunting
9.9
Illegal digging of old sites or graves to take things to sell
- noun
- UK
:
saqueo de sitios arqueológicos
- Many valuable artifacts have been lost due to pothunting by unscrupulous treasure hunters.
Examples
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The authorities have cracked down on pothunting activities in local parks.
-
Pothunting, more organized mining of antiquities, and removal of objects from contemporary cultural contexts deprive peoples and nations of their cultural heritage.
Academic text (1996) -
Pothunting is a serious crime that destroys important archaeological sites.
Synonyms
3
7.9
An illegal act of digging up graves to steal things or bodies
covers illegal searches of ancient sites and burials to remove artifacts for sale
How Illegal
Surface Forms
pothunting singular
pothuntings plural
Morphology
Etymology
Pothunting comes from the simple parts pot and hunting, where pot means old clay jars and other buried objects and hunting means 'searching'. So pothunting is like 'hunting for pots', digging up ancient finds to sell, often illegally.