Grave robbers

A mortsafe is a historical device used to protect graves from body snatchers during the 18th and 19th centuries. Body snatching was a common practice where individuals would steal corpses from graves to sell to medical schools for dissection and research. Mortsafes were typically made of iron or metal and placed over graves to prevent unauthorized access to the buried bodies. These devices often featured intricate locking mechanisms and were designed to deter grave robbers from exhuming the bodies. Mortsafes were particularly prevalent in Scotland and England during the height of the body snatching era and served as a means of safeguarding the deceased from being stolen for illicit purposes.