The most common type of artifact we have from antiquity is their storage vessels. This is in part because fired clay can last a very long time, but also because of the ubiquity and cultural relevance of these items.
There was a not at all an unreasonable abundance of these in BG3. I�m in bed right now, and every major object I can see aside from my bed is some sort of storage container (closet, dresser, clothing hamper, shoe rack, beside table, bookshelf). If the game didn�t have them, it would feel barren.
I could tell by the end of act 1 that there wasn�t much to be gained by checking anything besides bookshelves, bodies, unusual / unique containers, and chests. Larian could have just made all of these other containers cosmetic and non-functional, and there is an argument that this was the better design decision. However, taking not just one full playthrough but multiple playthroughs to catch on is kind of on you.
The logic of loot in the game is that you find it on bodies. That is strongly reinforced to the point where most players reflexively loot every body they find without consideration or hesitation. A skeleton is a body, not a box.
Very astute observations about game design and world building. Somebody else mentioned that most artifacts we have from ancient humans are storage vessels, because they are/were so abundant in our society, such as pottery used to hold ochre dyes for primitive dye manufacturing facilities tens of thousands of years ago. I'll add that some of our earliest examples of 'written language' amongst humans were the seals we used to keep such containers closed, the seals being frequently marked with symbols of ownership or origin. Hell, we store our dead in otherwise useless containers, something that's actually very well represented in this game (now that I think on it). Some of our earliest written language was also used here, to mark crypt seals and gravestones.
