The dead don't just get up and walk off. No. They need felonious help for that. Mental_floss has a fun piece on five great grave robberies (some more successful than others)--with guest corpses ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Abe Lincoln.
The Great Grave Robberies
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Where is the line between archaeology and grave robbing? Is it the act of cataloging the stuff one pulls from a grave that elevates it from grave robbing to archaeology? Grave robbers do it on their own at night, but archaeologists do it in broad daylight with grad-student helpers?
Essentially the difference is: If people think it's cool, it's archeology, if they get upset, it's grave robbery.
Sounds good to me.
One difference is that archeology is generally done with research as the primary motive while grave robbers are profit-driven.
Team of forensics specialists getting permission from Arlington Cemetery to dig up Lincoln's corpse to learn more about how he died: archeology.
Mercenaries digging up Lincoln's corpse for an eccentric millionaire who wants the skull for his study: grave robbing.
That is a good distinction, Brainspore. Essentially, the "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!" rule.
But, nonetheless, sometimes the most well-intentioned archaeology can still be grave-robbing. A good chunk of my last two years of undergrad archaeology was spent basically talking about when archaeology has been grave robbing (and when anthropology has been exploitative) in the past and how we can avoid doing that in the future.