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.
Size: 3300px × 2771px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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