Next year, the government will run a specialist research project aimed at developing a new working definition for treasure. To avoid such situations, culture minister Caroline Dineage has announced a major change that will expand the act’s 25-year-old definition beyond artifacts’ material qualities, making it easier for museums to both acquire and protect the country’s national heritage items, reports Caroline Davies for the Guardian. This limited definition excludes an array of rare artifacts, leaving them available to sell to private collectors at a major loss to the public, the U.K.

(Rules vary in Scotland and Northern Ireland.) Once reported as treasure, an object becomes the property of the state its finder is legally required to turn the artifact over to authorities for public display at national or local museums. With the creation of the 1996 Treasure Act, the United Kingdom’s government defined treasure-legally speaking-very narrowly: Finds are only designated as such if they’re more than 300 years old, made of gold or silver, or found alongside artifacts containing precious metals. How does one define “treasure”? Does it have to sparkle? Or emerge from the earth after centuries underground?

Precious artifact meaning