Cultural Vandalism in Chinese Tomb Discovery?

Countless coins unearthed from the ancient tomb. (Photo/Xinhua)

Yao Xinyu, 'Ten tons of copper coins unearthed in 2,000 years old ancient tomb' People's Daily Online November 05, 2015.

In Xinjian, China's Jiangxi Province, recently a 2,000 years old tomb from Western Han Dynasty (206BC - 9AD) was discovered. Over 10,000 objects were unearthed, including 10 tons of cooper coins (2 millions pieces, which had equal value of 50 kilograms of gold today), chime [bells?], bamboo slips, tomb figurines etc., which reveal the lives of the nobility in the Western Han Dynasty.

Peter Tompa remarks as he always does when groups of these objects are found in closed contexts like tombs that "for import restrictions under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act to apply, an item of archaeological interest must also be of cultural significance", and "With numbers like that, one wonders why there are any import restrictions on Chinese cash coins at all. China allows its own citizens to collect such cash coins freely. So why can't Americans freely import them from abroad as well?". It seems to me that the cultural significance of this find does not consist of the numbers, but the manner in which careful excavation reveals how they lay in the tomb, still in the strings in which they were brought to the site. Surely the Chinese are not going to split this group up and sell them off loose to collectors, either at home or abroad? That would be cultural vandalism.