Grave Robbing In Ancient Egypt

Grave Robbing
“Even in prosperous times the living robbed the dead.” This statement by Jocelyn Murray in A Tale Of Ancient Egypt serves as a direct reference to the tomb looting in Ancient Egypt, and displays the irony that the living robbed the dead’s possessions and even their bodies, and attempted to justify it. The two main motives for grave robbing were body snatching and grave looting. Grave robbing, although a travesty and an immoral violation of human rights, did however, help to further advance our medical understanding of the human body and diseases. The abominable art of grave robbing has been around since ancient times and hit its pinnacle in the 1800’s, however, the controversy of the morality of the ‘art’ has resulted in the passing
The Church was a large opposition to movement of grave robbing, especially in the 1800’s. Throughout Europe in the early 19th century, the dissection of criminal bodies after execution was considered a supplementary form of criminal punishment (“The Resurrectionists and Burke and Hare”). However, as time passed, the popular opinion became that grave robbing and dissection of the human body was inhumane, and should be considered lawfully, ethically, religiously illegal (“Body Snatching”). The main question asked by historians nowadays is: when, and by whom, was it considered acceptable to take from graves, whether it be bodies or possessions (Lafferty). Even today we struggle with the question of how to define the rights of the dead legally and morally. If for archeology purposes, we seem to have deemed the act legal, but have determined it illegal to steal from a present-day body, which brings into question if our beliefs of human rights for the deceased is
In the early 19th century, the popularity of body snatching grew, leading to the fortifications of graveyards to try to catch any Resurrection Men looking to make a steal (“Invasion of Body Snatchers”). The mastering of robbing graves by Resurrection Men was highly detested by the people, leading to tensions between society and the notorious grave robbers (Rankin). Family members began guarding the graves of their loved ones, and taking extra precautions by using iron, locked coffins to try and stifle the attempts of grave robbers (Lafferty). The highly experienced grave robbers were not too fazed by this; however, the largest impact in the demise of the grave robbing business was the Anatomy Act of 1832. Through the this Act, unclaimed bodies were given to medical schools to experiment on, which greatly reduced the grave robbing attempts in Europe (Highet). The act of grave robbing has evolved throughout time, having periods of success in the early 19th century, to a rapid decline in the late 1800’s. The moral controversy over the topic of body snatching was an overwhelmingly negative in the majority. The idea that it was considered acceptable to steal and dissect a human’s body just because they are dead violates multiple ethical and legal rights, thus the passing