Analysis On The Crime Of Illegal Excavation Of Ancient Tomb In The Persuective Of The Criminal Law

Due to historical and cultural traditions, ancient tombs are the sites where the soul of ancestors rest in peace. They represent the descendants’respect for ancestors, also reflects people’s living habits of that era, having important historical, scientific and artistic value. At the same time, there are many rare and precious cultural relics in the ancient tombs. The scarcity of cultural relics makes them have a high economic value, therefore, some people through excavating ancient tombs illegally to get cultural relics. Nowadays, the situation of illegally excavating ancient tombs is getting more and more serious. A large number of ancient tombs are destroyed, and a lot of precious cultural relics are lost overseas, causing immeasurable losses to the archaeological studies. In order to combat illegal excavating behavior more effectively, and protect precious cultural heritage that the ancestors left to us, it is necessary to analyse the crime of illegal excavation of ancient tomb systematically from the perspective of the criminal theory and have a clear understanding of the essence of the crime.This paper firstly introduces the history of illegal excavation behavior, how people punish the behavior in ancient times, and the procedure of legislation evolution of the crime of the crime of illegal excavation of ancient tomb after new China’s establishing. Secondly the paper introduces the cultural characteristics and value of ancient tomb. Then the paper introduces the present situation of the crime, analyses the reason why it’s so rampant and its social harm. After that, the paper analyses the criminal constitutes of the crime, and some problems in judicial practice to determine the crime, such as crime and non-crime, the quantity of crime, the definitional accomplished offence and attempt of the crime. At last, the paper analyses the inflation of the abolition of the death penalty to this crime and how to understand the definition of "many times" in the aggravated circumstances.