Suggesting archeologists on the other hand are robbing the grave implies they both don’t own it and the archeologists are taking ownership of whatever is removed. The first might apply but the second doesn’t.
The semantic point I was trying to make is that calling anyone a "grave robber" can be reasonably interpreted to imply the victim of the theft is those whose grave it is. Namely the dead. They're dead, so they certainly aren't consenting to the archeologists' activity either.
But I of course agree the archeologists aren't robbers. But that's because we as a society don't see the artefacts as belonging to the dead, as the phrase "grave robbers" can imply, rather they belong to the current living people and our institutions. So the original thieves aren't robbing from the dead, they're robbing from the people.
That said, there's something extra bad about robbing from the cultural heritage of the people AND desecrating the graves of the dead in the process. I would presume the archeologists would treat the area and the remains of people which much more respect. I really don't think the term "grave robber" is wrong, I just found it semantically interesting. Maybe another term could be "grave desecrating antiquity thieves"
