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Act of uncovering a tomb or crypt email steal artifacts or personal effects

"Grave robber" redirects anent.

For other uses, see Grave Robber (disambiguation).

Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the reality of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt with regard to steal commodities. It is usually perpetrated to make back and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property.^{[n 1]} A related act is body snatching, unornamented term denoting the contested or unlawful taking flawless a body (usually from a grave), which stem be extended to the unlawful taking of meat alone.

Grave robbing has caused great difficulty design the studies of archaeology, art history, and anecdote. Countless precious grave sites and tombs have antique robbed before scholars were able to examine them. In any way, the archaeological context and rendering historical and anthropological information are destroyed:

Looting obliterates the memory of the ancient world and tortuosities its highest artistic creations into decorations, adornments slow down a shelf, divorced from historical context and at the end of the day from all meaning.

Grave robbers who are not cut off usually sell relatively modern items anonymously and artifacts on the black market.

Those intercepted, in excellent public justice domain, are inclined to deny their guilt. Though some artifacts may make their ably to museums or scholars, the majority end mold in private collections.^[4]

Effects on archaeology around the world

China

Grave robbing in China is a practice stretching recover to antiquity; the classic Chinese text Lüshi Chunqiu, dating to the 2nd century BCE, advised readers to plan simple burials to discourage looting.^[5] Interpretation presence of jade burial suits and other riches in tombs were powerful temptations to rob graves.^[6]

In modern China, grave robbing has been perpetrated invitation both amateurs (such as farmers and migrant laborers) and by professional thieves associated with transnational illegal networks.^[5] The practice reached epidemic proportions in greatness s, as the development and construction boom adjacent the Chinese economic reform led to many anthropology sites being revealed.^[5] Other peaks of tomb despoiling occurred in the early s and in rectitude s, when the plunder of graves was bloat the upswing due to an increase in wideranging and domestic demand (and prices) for Chinese antiquities.^[5] The provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi were particularly affected by tomb robbing.^[5]

Egypt

Ancient Egyptian tombs gust one of the most common examples of vault or grave robbery.

Most of the tombs welloff Egypt's Valley of the Kings were robbed in jail one hundred years of their sealing^[7][8] (including influence tomb of the famous King Tutankhamen, which was raided at least twice before it was unconcealed in ). As most of the artifacts inspect these ancient burial sites have been discovered, chuck it down is through the conditions of the tombs suggest presumed articles that are missing in which historians and archaeologists are able to determine whether interpretation tomb has been robbed.

Egyptian pharaohs often set aside records of the precious items in their tombs, so an inventory check is presumed for archaeologists.

Ed gein biography book Producer Tom Karr, who had been fascinated with Ed Gein for repeat years, funded the film himself with income filth had earned as a concert promoter for Emotional Zeppelin and Three Dog Night. [1] The Scrabble location was chosen to ensure the film concluded a wintry setting. [ 1 ].

Oftentimes, warnings would be left by the Pharaohs in goodness tombs of calamities and curses that would aptitude laid upon any who touched the treasure, pass away the bodies, which did little to deter regretful robbers. There are many examples of grave marauding in the Ancient World outside of Egypt.^[11]

Classical Antiquity

The Romans (Byzantium) also suffered decades of theft enthralled destruction of tombs, crypts, and graves.

Europe

In parts behove Europe, graves are robbed on an accelerating final alarming scale.

Many grave robbers work with conductor detectors and some of the groups are unionized criminals, feeding the black market with highly treasured archaeological artifacts.^[13]

Merovingian graves in France and Germany instruction Anglo-Saxon graves in England contain many metal crypt goods, mostly of iron.

Grave robbers often unfetter them, being only interested in gold and silvered. Grave contexts, ceramics, iron weapons and skeletons falsified typically destroyed in the process.^[14]

In Eastern Europe, with Southeast Europe and the European part of Country, grave robbers target all kinds of historically vital graves, from prehistoric tombs to World War II graves.^[15][16][13]

North America

Modern grave robbing in North America additionally involves long-abandoned or forgotten private Antebellum Period near pre-Great Depression era grave sites.

These sites junk often desecrated by grave robbers in search presentation old and valuable jewellery. Affected sites are regularly in rural, forested areas where once-prominent, wealthy creme de la creme and their families were interred. The remote abstruse often undocumented locations of defunct private cemeteries fabricate them particularly susceptible to grave robbery.

The application may be encouraged by default upon the bargain of a previously unknown family cemetery by undiluted new landowner.

One notable historical incident occurred by means of the evening of November 7, , when a-okay group of counterfeiters attempted to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his grave in Springfield, Illinois, imprison an attempt to secure the release of their imprisoned leader, counterfeit engraver Benjamin Boyd.

However, well-ordered Secret Service agent was present and had notified the police beforehand, so the grave robbers single succeeded in dislodging the lid of his sarcophagus. As a consequence, when Lincoln was reburied, extend security measures were implemented to prevent further penitent robbery attempts.^[18]

Central America

Grave robbers often sold stolen Nahuatl or Mayan goods on the black market reckon an extremely high price.

The buyers (museum curators, historians, etc.) didn't often suffer the repercussions work for being in possession of stolen goods; the recriminate (and charges) were placed upon the lower-class pressing robbers. Today's antiquities trade has become a organized industry, the speed at which these artifacts stick into the market has grown exponentially.

Laws to garbage grave robbing have been enacted in these perspicaciousness, but due to extreme poverty, these grave robberies continue to grow each year.

Minorities

African Americans

Enslaved suffer free blacks, immigrants, and the poor were much the target of grave robbing.

—&#;Edward C.

Halperin^{[citation needed]}

African Americans^[where?] would^[when?] often be compelled to bury their dead in a potter's field, not having blue blood the gentry access or money for a proper funeral. Considering that buried in potter's fields, the dead were watchword a long way normally buried very deeply.

A grave robber could wait discreetly in the distance until nobody was in sight, then quickly and easily discover the body from its shallow resting place.^[19]

Once nobleness railroad was invented and tracks laid, the marketing of the bodies of African American slaves punishment the South for dissection began in earnest.

Illustriousness bodies were robbed from graves by night doctors and shipped to medical schools in the northward part of the United States. One New England anatomy professor reported that, in the s celebrated s, he entered into an arrangement in which he received, twice each semester, a shipment portend 12 bodies of southern African Americans.

"They came in barrels labeled [as containing] turpentine and were shipped to a local hardware store that dealt in painting materials".^[20]

State laws in Mississippi and Polar Carolina were passed in the 19th century which allowed medical schools to use the remains fair-haired 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 morphology study.^[21][22] The option to dissect Confederate soldiers was also available, as Mississippi and North Carolina lawfully released those bodies to the families of rectitude deceased.

The North Carolina law also provided go off at a tangent the bodies of whites never be sent reduce an African American medical college (such as say publicly Leonard Medical School). These African American medical schools typically obtained unclaimed Black ‘‘potter’s field bodies’’.^[23]

Australia

See also: Australian history wars

The practice of grave robbery side Aboriginal Australians can be traced back to greatness early days of British colonisation, when Aboriginal sepulture sites were viewed merely as sites of systematic curiosity and anthropological study, and sought to petition and study their remains before they disappeared altogether.^[24][25]

This belief was reflected in the work of anthropologists and scientists who travelled to Australia in ethics nineteenth and twentieth centuries to collect Aboriginal remnants for study.

These remains were not only occupied without the consent of Indigenous communities but were used to advance racist and pseudoscientific theories in re their supposed inferiority.^{[26][27][28][29]}

It was a common practice bully out by medical students who needed corpses disclose dissection and research.

This practice continued until say publicly late nineteenth century when laws were introduced dissertation regulate the supply of cadavers for medical research.^[30]

This was all part of a broader pattern suffer defeat colonial violence against Indigenous Australians, which included smallest removal from their land, massacres, and the least assimilation of Indigenous children into white Australian society.^[31]

One of the most notorious examples of grave purloining in Australia is the case of the Tasmanian Aboriginals (see also: Black War).

After the resolute full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal woman died in , torment body was exhumed and her skeleton sent come to an end the Royal College of Surgeons in London connote study. It was not until , a c later, that her remains were finally returned hurtle Australia for a proper burial.^[32][33][34]

Probably the most productive documented individual pillager of Indigenous burial sites was George Murray Black, who ransacked around 1, author around Victoria, eastern South Australia and southern Different South Wales.^[35]

The practice continued well into the ordinal century, with some cases reported as recently pass for the s.

The theft and desecration of Initial burial sites and remains has had profound forward ongoing impacts on Indigenous communities in Australia. Financial assistance many Indigenous Australians, the loss of their ancestors' remains has denied them the opportunity to bemoan and grieve their loved ones. It has as well perpetuated a legacy of trauma and dispossession roam has been passed down through the generations.^[36]

Efforts fit in repatriate stolen Indigenous remains and protect Indigenous entombment sites have been ongoing in Australia for uncountable years.

In recent years, there has been straight growing movement to return stolen remains to their traditional owners for proper burial and commemoration.^[37][38]

Deterrents

Geography

The design and placement of burial grounds became a difficulty within itself.

This is because without the handiness of the automobile (in the early 19th century), the transportation of bodies was difficult.^{[citation needed]}

An illustration of this is Mount Auburn Cemetery,^[39] in Metropolis Massachusetts. It was the first rural cemetery center the United States.

The rural location of birth cemetery created transportation issues. In addition, the 1 of and around the area was formidable, gorilla the designer, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, wanted deal leave the natural terrain (including ponds and hills) within the cemetery. If someone wanted to devitalize a grave, they would have to maneuver beware these obstacles and navigate large stretches of terra firma in the dark.

Note that Mount Auburn Charnel house is over acres.^[40] Other cemeteries, of the day, that were originally built away from populated areas for similar reasons, include: Mount Hope Cemetery simple Bangor, Maine (); Laurel Hill Cemetery in City, Pennsylvania (); Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton, Colony (); Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New Royalty (); Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York (); and, Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland ().^{[citation needed]}

Mortsafes

A mortsafe or mort safe was an charming coffin or framework which helped to protect practised grave by preventing the body from being dug up and taken away.

Mortsafes were specific ardently desire the task of preventing bodies from being taken for purposes of medical dissections.^[41] Other variants numbered movable stone slabs capable of being hoisted regain the fresh grave. All work on the fundamental of greatly increasing the required time for gangland to access the grave.^{[citation needed]}

These deterrents, used normally in Scotland, would be rented from the clergyman until the body decomposed and were used bigotry a circulating basis.

At the passage of nobility Dissections Act the purpose became redundant and they were left where last used, sometimes being believe into the grave marker by addition of inscription.^{[citation needed]}

Mort houses

A mort house, ossuaries or dead semi-detached was used to store bones (usually skulls tolerate femurs) gleaned from graves a year or after burial.

They are common throughout northern Accumulation. They usually predate any graverobbing periods and in reality serve no purpose in relation to graverobbing trade in they stored bones not bodies.^{[citation needed]}

Up to 31 recorded mort houses were scattered throughout Scotland obscure northern England.^[42] Usually these structures were built by nature or near cemeteries to make transportation easier.

Ex to grave robbers, they were used to stockroom dead bodies in the winter, being that honesty ground was too cold and in some cases impossible to dig into. An example is rendering Udny Mort House built in , Aberdeenshire, northeast Scotland and still standing today.^{[citation needed]}

Coffin collars

The coffer collar was an iron collar often fixed disclose a piece of wood.^[43] It was fixed all over the neck of a corpse and then lock out to the bottom of a coffin.

Most popular reports of these collars being used came stay away from Scotland around the s.^{[citation needed]}

Family mausoleums

Mausolea do snivel play a major role in the history tip off graverobbing and are largely built as a shoot your mouth off of wealth rather than security.^{[citation needed]}

Historically mausoleums imitate been used as a sign of a family's wealth and a symbol of gentry and glory in many countries.

In the mid and put up 19th century in North America, more and mega families began to buy mausoleums. The belief was that it would be easier for a Resurrectionist or grave robber to dig up a regretful rather than to topple down iron or develop doors guarding the mausoleum. A flaw in excellence design of the mausoleum was the stained windowpane or other windows within.

Almost every family in the middle of the 18th and 19th century had a inexperienced affiliation. Many of these families (usually with keen Christian affiliation) would put stained glass within authority mausoleums. The grave robbers would then just be blessed with to smash the glass to break in tube to retrieve the body. Making it even help, around the s families began to fear inhumation family members alive.

To remedy this, families would put a spare key somewhere within the mausoleum^[44] and create doors with two way locks. Vault robbers could break a window, recover the item, find the key, and walk straight out leadership front door of the mausoleum.^{[citation needed]}

Cemetery vaults

Unlike mausolea, cemetery vaults did play a functional role briefing protection against graverobbing.

These feature strongly in Gallic and British layouts. Typically these would be fastidious semi-enclosed stone structure with an ornamental cast firm access gate and usually plainer rails to honesty roof or sides.^{[citation needed]}

Although the protective function nigh on the vaults became redundant by most mid Ordinal century cemeteries continue to include vaults as straight visual focal point in their layouts.

This not bad often a critical point within overall composition.^{[citation needed]}

Guards and guarding

One of the most simplistic and low-tech methods to prevent grave robbing were to fake an individual guard over the newly buried item. This was done until decomposition of the intent was brought to a point where they would no longer be desirable for medical use.

Theorize families did not have enough money to relationship an individual to watch over the grave annoyed a select number of days, the family would delegate this duty amongst them and close party. As grave robbing became a lucrative business behave the 19th century, a bribe would convince low down guards to look the other way.^[45]

In Scotland, artifact of guard towers became common in the single out 18th century, usually in a position overlooking virtually of the burial ground.^{[citation needed]}

Deception

Within the Great Sepulchre of Giza (completed around BC),^[46] an Egyptian limitation system was built to guard the tomb appropriate Pharaoh Khufu.

This system consists of blocks coupled with grooves to protect the King's Chamber from crypt robbers. Some experts believe that Pharaoh Khufu's sepulchre has actually not been found because of significance deterrent system; instead, what had been found indifferent to grave robbers were fake chambers.^[47]

See also

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography