page_title: Mortsafe
section_title: The mortsafe
hierarchical_section_title: Mortsafe / The mortsafe
caption_attribution_description: English: One of two fine specimens of mortsafe in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
context_page_description: Mortsafes were contraptions designed to protect graves from disturbance. Resurrectionists had supplied the schools of anatomy in Scotland since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies – for example the corpses of executed criminals – granted by the government, which controlled the supply.
context_section_description: The mortsafe was invented around 1816. These were iron or iron-and-stone devices of great weight, in many different designs. Often they were complex heavy iron contraptions of rods and plates, padlocked together - examples have been found close to all Scottish medical schools. A plate was placed over the coffin and rods with heads were pushed through holes in it. These rods were kept in place by locking a second plate over the first to form extremely heavy protection. It would be removed by two people with keys. They were placed over the coffins for about six weeks, then removed for further use when the body inside was sufficiently decayed. There is a model of a mortsafe of this type in Marischal Museum, Aberdeen. Sometimes a church bought them and hired them out. Societies were also formed to purchase them and control their use, with annual membership fees, and charges made to non-members.
caption: Mortsafe in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh
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