Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of opening a grave, tomb, or crypt to steal items. This activity is also called looting. It is usually done to take valuable artifacts or personal belongings. A similar action is body snatching, which means taking a body (often from a grave) without permission, or taking organs without permission.

Grave robbing has made it harder for archaeologists, art historians, and historians to study the past. Many valuable graves and tombs were robbed before experts could examine them. This loss destroys important details about where and how items were found, as well as historical and human-related information.

Grave robbers who are not caught often sell modern items and stolen artifacts through illegal markets. Those who are caught usually deny being guilty. While some stolen items may reach museums or scholars, most end up in private collections.

Effects on archaeology around the world

Grave robbing in China has been around for a very long time. A famous Chinese text from the 2nd century BCE, called Lüshi Chunqiu, suggested people should use simple burials to stop thieves from stealing valuable items like jade burial suits. These items in tombs were very tempting for robbers to take.

In modern China, grave robbing has been done by both casual people, such as farmers and workers, and by professional thieves who are part of large criminal groups. This problem became very serious in the 1980s because of a lot of construction and development that uncovered many ancient burial sites. Grave robbing also increased in the early 2000s and the 2010s because more people wanted to buy ancient Chinese items, which made them more valuable. The provinces of Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi were especially affected by this crime.

Ancient Egyptian tombs are a well-known example of grave robbing. Most tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings were robbed within 100 years of being sealed. This included the tomb of King Tutankhamen, which was robbed at least twice before it was found in 1922. Historians and archaeologists study the condition of tombs and missing items to tell if a grave was robbed. Pharaohs often listed the treasures in their tombs, so archaeologists can check for missing items. Some Pharaohs left warnings about bad luck or curses for anyone who stole from their tombs, but these warnings did not stop robbers. Grave robbing was also common in many other parts of the ancient world outside of Egypt.

The Romans (and later the Byzantines) also faced many years of theft and damage to tombs, crypts, and graves.

In some parts of Europe, grave robbing is happening more and more. Many robbers use metal detectors, and some groups are organized criminals who sell stolen artifacts on the black market.

In France, Germany, and England, graves from the Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon periods often had metal items, like iron weapons. Robbers usually took only gold and silver, leaving other items behind. This process often destroyed grave contexts, pottery, weapons, and skeletons.

In Eastern Europe, including Southeast Europe and parts of Russia, robbers target many types of important graves, from ancient tombs to graves from World War II.

In North America, grave robbing often involves old private cemeteries from the Antebellum Period to the Great Depression era. These sites are sometimes found in rural or forested areas where wealthy families were buried. Because these cemeteries are often far from cities and not well recorded, they are easy targets for robbers. Sometimes, when a new landowner finds an unknown family cemetery, grave robbing may begin.

A famous event happened on November 7, 1876, when a group of counterfeiters tried to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body from his grave in Springfield, Illinois, to help free their imprisoned leader. A Secret Service agent had warned the police, so the robbers only managed to move the lid of Lincoln’s coffin. After this, more security was added to protect Lincoln’s remains.

Grave robbers often sold stolen Aztec or Mayan items on the black market for very high prices. Buyers, like museum curators and historians, usually did not face punishment for owning these items, and the blame was placed on the robbers. Today, the trade of ancient artifacts has become a fast and organized industry. Although laws have been made to stop grave robbing, it continues to grow because of extreme poverty in some areas.

Against minority populations

During the 1800s, many African Americans in the United States did not have the money or resources to have a proper funeral for their loved ones. Instead, they were often buried in potter’s fields, which were places where poor people were buried without formal ceremonies. These graves were usually shallow, making it easier for grave robbers to dig up the bodies. Robbers would wait until no one was around and then quickly take the bodies from their shallow graves.

When the railroad was built, the movement of bodies from the South to the North increased. Medical schools in the North began buying the bodies of African American slaves from Southern graves. These bodies were taken by people called "night doctors" and sent to schools where doctors studied human anatomy. A professor in New England said that in the 1880s and 1890s, he received 12 bodies every semester. These bodies were sent in barrels labeled as containing turpentine, a type of liquid, and delivered to a store that sold painting supplies.

In the 19th century, laws in Mississippi and North Carolina allowed medical schools to use the bodies of people who had no family or were very poor, including those buried in potter’s fields. These laws also allowed the use of bodies of Confederate soldiers, as their families could legally claim them. However, North Carolina’s laws prevented white bodies from being sent to African American medical schools, such as Leonard Medical School. These schools often used unclaimed Black bodies from potter’s fields.

In Australia, British colonizers began stealing the remains of Aboriginal people during the early days of colonization. They viewed Aboriginal burial sites as places for scientific study and collected remains before they were lost forever. Scientists and anthropologists from Europe traveled to Australia in the 1800s and 1900s to take Aboriginal remains without asking for permission. These remains were used to support false ideas about the superiority of white people and the supposed inferiority of Aboriginal people.

Medical students often took bodies from graves to use for dissection and research. This practice continued until the late 1800s, when laws were created to control how bodies were used for medical study. This was part of a larger history of violence against Indigenous Australians, including being forced from their land, being killed in massacres, and having their children taken to live with white families.

One well-known case of grave robbing involved the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. After the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal woman died in 1876, her body was dug up, and her skeleton was sent to a medical school in London. Her remains were not returned to Australia until 1976, 100 years later.

George Murray Black, a man who stole many Aboriginal remains, dug up about 1,800 graves in areas of Victoria, South Australia, and New South Wales. This practice continued into the 1900s, with some thefts reported as late as the 1970s. The stealing and damaging of Aboriginal burial sites and remains have caused lasting harm to Indigenous communities. Many Indigenous people have been unable to properly mourn their ancestors, and this has led to ongoing pain and loss.

In recent years, efforts have been made to return stolen remains to their original communities and protect burial sites. More people are now working to return remains to their rightful places for proper burial and remembrance.

Deterrents

The location and layout of burial grounds acted as a deterrent because, in the early 19th century, people did not have cars to transport bodies easily. This made it harder to move remains from one place to another.

An example of this is Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the first rural cemetery in the United States. Its remote location and difficult terrain, including hills and ponds, made it hard for people to reach. The designer, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn, wanted to keep the natural landscape intact. If someone tried to steal a body, they would have to walk long distances and avoid obstacles like hills and ponds, especially in the dark. Mount Auburn Cemetery covers more than 175 acres. Other cemeteries built away from cities 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).

A mortsafe was an iron framework or coffin used to protect graves from being dug up. It was designed to stop grave robbers from stealing bodies for medical study. Other versions included movable stone slabs that could be placed over fresh graves. These methods made it harder and slower for criminals to access graves.

Mortsafes were commonly used in Scotland. They were rented from the sexton (a person who manages a cemetery) until the body decomposed. After the Dissections Act was passed, mortsafes were no longer needed and were often left at the grave site or added to grave markers with inscriptions.

A mort house, ossuary, or dead house was a structure used to store bones, such as skulls and femurs, from graves after burial. These were common in northern Europe and were built before grave robbing became widespread. They were not used to stop grave robbers but to store bones, not bodies. Up to 31 mort houses were recorded in Scotland and northern England. They were built near cemeteries to make it easier to transport bones. Before grave robbers existed, they were used to store bodies in winter when the ground was too cold to dig. An example is the Udny Mort House in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, built in 1832 and still standing today.

A coffin collar was an iron ring attached to a wooden piece and placed around a corpse’s neck. It was then bolted to the bottom of the coffin. These collars were most commonly used in Scotland around the 1820s.

Mausolea were not effective in preventing grave robbing. They were built to show wealth and status, not for security. In the mid- to late-1800s, families in North America began buying mausoleums, believing they were safer than regular graves. However, mausoleums often had stained glass windows, which grave robbers could break to enter. Some families added spare keys inside mausoleums and used two-way locks, making it easier for robbers to steal bodies.

Cemetery vaults, however, did help protect graves from being robbed. These were common in French and British cemeteries. They were semi-enclosed stone structures with ornamental cast iron gates and plain railings. Although their protective role became unnecessary by 1840, many 19th-century cemeteries still included vaults as important visual features in their designs.

One simple way to stop grave robbing was to have a person guard a newly buried body until it decomposed. If families could not afford a guard, they would take turns watching the grave. As grave robbing became profitable, some guards accepted bribes to ignore robbers. In Scotland, guard towers were built in the late 18th century to watch over burial grounds.

In the Great Pyramid of Giza (built around 2560 BC), a system of blocks and grooves was used to protect the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu. Experts believe the tomb has not been found because of this system, and only fake chambers have been discovered by robbers.