![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Made of iron and sometimes incorporating a heavy stone lid, a mortsafe enclosed a coffin to defend it from interference. It’s a rare relic from an era of rampant fear of grave robbing, when contraptions called mortsafes protected the newly dead. In the Scottish hamlet of Towie, a rusted metal crown rises from the churchyard. Meier explains how mortsafes kept the bodysnatchers at bay. When an expansion in the study of anatomy at medical schools fuelled a brisk trade in grave robbing, families fought to protect their loved ones’ remains. Mortsafes at Kinnernie graveyard, Aberdeenshire / Wellcome Collection, Creative Commons ![]()
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