Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal Grave goods. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property. A related act is body snatching, a term denoting the contested or unlawful taking of a body (usually from a grave), which can be extended to the unlawful taking of organs alone. Grave robbing has caused great difficulty to the studies of archaeology, art history, and history. Countless precious grave sites and tombs have been robbed before scholars were able to examine them. In any way, the archaeological context and the historical and anthropological information are destroyed:
Grave robbers who are not caught usually sell relatively modern items anonymously and artifacts on the black market. Those intercepted, in a public justice domain, are inclined to deny their guilt. Though some artifacts may make their way to museums or scholars, the majority end up in private collections.
In modern China, grave robbing has been perpetrated by both amateurs (such as farmers and migrant laborers) and by professional thieves associated with transnational criminal networks. The practice reached epidemic proportions in the 1980s, as the development and construction boom following the Chinese economic reform led to many archaeological sites being revealed. Other peaks of tomb robbing occurred in the early 2000s and in the 2010s, when the plunder of graves was on the upswing due to an increase in global and domestic demand (and prices) for Chinese antiquities. The provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi were particularly affected by tomb robbing.
Merovingian graves in France and Germany and Anglo-Saxon graves in England contain many metal grave goods, mostly of iron. Grave robbers often leave them, being only interested in gold and silver. Grave contexts, ceramics, iron weapons and skeletons are typically destroyed in the process.
In Eastern Europe, including Southeast Europe and the European part of Russia, grave robbers target all kinds of historically important graves, from prehistoric tombs to World War II graves.
One notable historical incident occurred during the evening of November 7, 1876, when a group of counterfeiters attempted to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his grave in Springfield, Illinois, in an attempt to secure the release of their imprisoned leader, counterfeit engraver Benjamin Boyd. However, a Secret Service agent was present and had notified the police beforehand, so the grave robbers only succeeded in dislodging the lid of his coffin. As a consequence, when Lincoln was reburied, additional security measures were implemented to prevent further grave robbery attempts.Keith Verinese: "The Adventures of Abraham Lincoln's Corpse:" http://io9.com/S898746/the-adventures-of-abraham-lincolns-corpse
Once the railroad was invented and tracks laid, the sale of the bodies of African American slaves from the South for dissection began in earnest. The bodies were robbed from graves by Night Doctors and shipped to medical schools in the northern part of the United States. One New England anatomy professor reported that, in the 1880s and 1890s, he entered into an arrangement in which he received, twice each semester, a shipment of 12 bodies of southern African Americans. "They came in barrels labeled as turpentine and were shipped to a local hardware store that dealt in painting materials".
State laws in Mississippi and North Carolina were passed in the 19th century which allowed medical schools to use the remains of those at the bottom of society's hierarchy—the unclaimed bodies of poor persons and residents of almshouses, and those buried in potter's fields for anatomical study.
It was a common practice carried out by medical students who needed corpses for dissection and research. This practice continued until the late nineteenth century when laws were introduced to regulate the supply of cadavers for medical research.Mendelson, D. (2018). Body-snatching and grave-robbing in colonial Australia. Journal of Medical Biography, 26(2), 62-68. doi:10.1177/0967772015620039
This was all part of a broader pattern of colonial violence against Indigenous Australians, which included forced removal from their land, massacres, and the forced assimilation of Indigenous children into white Australian society.
One of the most notorious examples of grave robbery in Australia is the case of the Tasmanian Aboriginals (see also: Black War). After the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal woman died in 1876, her body was exhumed and her skeleton sent to the Royal College of Surgeons in London for study. It was not until 1976, a century later, that her remains were finally returned to Australia for a proper burial."Tasmanian Aboriginals and Grave Robbery."
Probably the most prolific documented individual pillager of Indigenous burial sites was George Murray Black, who ransacked around 1,800 graves around Victoria, eastern South Australia and southern New South Wales.
The practice continued well into the twentieth century, with some cases reported as recently as the 1970s. The theft and desecration of Aboriginal burial sites and remains has had profound and ongoing impacts on Indigenous communities in Australia. For many Indigenous Australians, the loss of their ancestors' remains has denied them the opportunity to mourn and grieve their loved ones. It has also perpetuated a legacy of trauma and dispossession that has been passed down through the generations.The Guardian. (2020, June 15). 'We're not pets': Australia'
An example of this is Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge Massachusetts. It was the first rural cemetery inside the United States. The rural location of the cemetery created transportation issues. In addition, the terrain of and around the area was formidable, as the designer, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, wanted to leave the natural terrain (including ponds and hills) within the cemetery. If someone wanted to rob a grave, they would have to maneuver around these obstacles and navigate large stretches of land in the dark. Note that Mount Auburn Cemetery is over 175 acres. Other cemeteries, of the time, that were originally built away from populated areas for similar reasons, include: Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, Maine (1834); Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1836); Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton, Massachusetts (1836); Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York (1838); Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York (1838); and, Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland (1838).
These deterrents, used commonly in Scotland, would be rented from the sexton until the body decomposed and were used on a circulating basis. At the passage of the Dissections Act the purpose became redundant and they were left where last used, sometimes being incorporated into the grave marker by addition of inscription.
Up to 31 recorded mort houses were scattered throughout Scotland and northern England. Usually these structures were built within or near cemeteries to make transportation easier. Prior to grave robbers, they were used to store dead bodies in the winter, being that the ground was too cold and in some cases impossible to dig into. An example is the Udny Mort House built in 1832, Aberdeenshire, north-east Scotland and still standing today.
Historically mausoleums have been used as a sign of a family's wealth and a symbol of gentry and nobility in many countries. In the mid and late 19th century in North America, more and more families began to buy mausoleums. The belief was that it would be easier for a Resurrectionist or grave robber to dig up a grave rather than to topple down iron or steel doors guarding the mausoleum. A flaw in the design of the mausoleum was the stained glass or other windows within. Almost every family between the 18th and 19th century had a religious affiliation. Many of these families (usually with a Christian affiliation) would put stained glass within the mausoleums. The grave robbers would then just have to smash the glass to break in and to retrieve the body. Making it even easier, around the 1830s families began to fear burying family members alive. To remedy this, families would put a spare key somewhere within the mausoleum and create doors with two way locks. Grave robbers could break a window, recover the body, find the key, and walk straight out the front door of the mausoleum.
Although the protective function of the vaults became redundant by 1840 most mid 19th century cemeteries continue to include vaults as a visual focal point in their layouts. This is often a critical point within overall composition.
In Scotland, construction of guard towers became common in the late 18th century, usually in a position overlooking most of the burial ground.
Egypt
Classical Antiquity
Europe
North America
Central America
Minorities
African Americans
Australia
/ref>"Looting the bodies of Aboriginal people added to the trauma of colonisation."
/ref>
/ref>Australian Broadcasting Company. (2018). The dark history of Australia'
/ref>The Guardian. (2019). 'Indefensible'
/ref>
/ref>"Tasmanian Aboriginal people."
/ref>"Tasmanian Aboriginals, Colonisation and Protection: 1803-1900."
/ref>
/ref>
Deterrents
Geography
Mortsafes
Mort houses
Coffin collars
Family mausoleums
Cemetery vaults
Guards and guarding
Deception
See also
Notes and references
Bibliography
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