Exhumation

Exhumation refers to the removal of human remains from their place of interment. In modern society exhumation occurs for a number of reasons, including repatriation to a different country, to change the type of disposal from inhumation to cremation, to change the location of interment, or to conform to a legal request. These types of exhumation are uncommon, particularly the latter, and are often difficult as many countries have laws [Page 439]governing the disturbance of the dead. The majority of individual exhumations occur because the wishes of the deceased have been identified after inhumation has taken place. The other type of exhumation, both archaeological and forensic excavation, takes place to make way for new developments or to investigate the events surrounding ancient burial custom or modern crimes and genocides.

Exhumation in History: Politics and Grave Robbing

In historic cases, exhumation may have been facilitated by similar agendas, and examples of political and personal motivations exist where exhumation has been used to investigate, steal from, or punish the dead. Exhumation is also witnessed historically; Oliver Cromwell's body, for example, was exhumed after the reinstatement of royalty in England to facilitate his posthumous execution (Cromwell was Lord Protector of England 1653–1658 and commander of the parliamentarian forces in the civil war). Grave robbing can also be a form of exhumation, as many ancient civilizations placed valuable goods within their graves. During the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptian ruling elite mutilated their tomb builders to prevent the location of their burial being revealed. Despite such measures and the use of protective traps and curses, many of these tombs were robbed in antiquity. This ancient tomb robbing targeted the valuable materials, but mummies were also destroyed or defaced, particularly those of controversial political figures like Akhenaten who, like Cromwell, was punished for his radical politics posthumously.

Grave robbing to acquire valuable material is a common theme in the literature of past societies, both in favor of the heroic act and warning against it because of magical or mystical defenses. This is seen in the story surrounding the death of the king Beowulf (in the 9th-century epic poem of the same name), in which a clumsy member of his retinue awakens a sleeping dragon during his ill-advised robbery of the tomb in which it slept. The dragon is subsequently slain by Beowulf, but Beowulf, by then an old man, dies in the battle. This type of event is seen in modern mythology, and the tale of Beowulf is mirrored in J. R. R. Tolkien's classic The Hobbit and subsequently built upon in his trilogy Lord of the Rings, in which spiritual guardians, both good and evil, live in ancient tumuli.