It is possible that the traveller will begin his journey at a point
other than the capital. Inquiries should be made at the London head-
quarters of the Schools concerning residents at such places who may
be able to give advice to intending travellers.

The traveller will doubtless bring back with him such antiquities as
he is permitted to export. A word of general advice on this matter
may not be out of place here. The essential value of antiquities,
apart from their purely artistic interest, lies in the circumstances
in which they are found. The inexperienced traveller is apt to pick
up a number of objects haphazard, without accurately noting their
find-spots, and even, getting tired of them, as a child of flowers
that he has picked, to discard them a mile or two away. If the first
act is a blunder, the second is a crime; it is better to leave them
lying in place. For the same reason, it is highly desirable that
objects found together (e.g. the contents of a tomb) should as far as
possible be kept together, or at least that accurate record of the
whole group should be made, since the archaeological value of a find
may depend on a single object, apparently of small importance.
Nothing, for instance, is more common, or more distressing to the
numismatist, than the division of a hoard of coins among various
persons before they have been examined by an expert. If they must be
divided, good impressions should at least be made by one of the
methods described in Chapter II, and, if the coins are of gold or
silver, the weights should be noted. This should be done even if the
coins, to the inexperienced eye, appear to be all alike. The
knowledge that any coin from a hoard may be of greater value than a
similar coin found singly may induce finders to report such finds
before dispersing them. What applies to coins is equally applicable,
in various ways, to all classes of antiquities.