The treatment archeological finds get today is downright religious compared "that's a damn good stone, we'll use that stone for a lintel, chuck the skeleton in the river" that would've happened prior to the modern era.

Or worse, for centuries mummies were ground into powder for “medicine” or pigments, during the Egyptology craze hundred of mummies were unwrapped and destroyed for the idle curiosity and entertainment of aristocrats, and tens of thousands of cat mummies are attested being used as fertiliser.