>It is a much different scenario if an artifact is destroyed either intentionally or unintentionally.

I'd forgotten to respond to this earlier but it's been bugging me, so I'd like to note that a significant amount stolen art is never recovered. In some cases prominent and expensive artworks have been destroyed by the thieves when they couldn't move the art in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Stolen art is sometimes destroyed either intentionally or unintentionally.