Body Snatching, 1628

Woodcut, 1628. A man appears to be carving a human figure on the lid of a sarcophagus; another man (perhaps the patron) observes; on the right, two men are in the act of burying or exhuming a body in a church cemetery. Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Those who practiced body snatching were often called resurrectionists or resurrection-men. A related act is grave robbery, uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects rather than corpses

Restrictions Only for Ireland and United Kingdom

1628 Artifacts Belongings Body Snatching Body-snatching Buried Cadaver Corpses Disinterment Illegal Interred Macabre Prematurely Resurrection Resurrectionist Robber Sell Snatcher Snatching Steal Woodblock

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