When we think about the end of life, most of us picture a neat burial or a dignified cremation. Yet a surprisingly wide array of cultures and sub‑cultures have found ways to keep fragments of the departed hanging around, and the reasons are as varied as they are startling. In this roundup we’ll count down the 10 reasons keeping human body parts after death, from holy relics to gruesome war trophies, and everything in between.
10. Reasons Keeping: An Overview
10. Relics Of Saints
If living a good and holy life isn’t enough to guarantee a whole‑body afterlife, many believers have turned to the preservation of specific body fragments as a tangible link to the divine. Across centuries the Roman Catholic Church has amassed a staggering collection of saintly relics, ranging from the mundane to the miraculous.
These sacred scraps include everything you can imagine: the head of St. Catherine of Siena, still displayed in the Basilica Cateriniana San Domenico in Tuscany; the tongue of St. Anthony of Padua; even the blood of St. Januarius, the foreskin of the infant Jesus, and the finger of Doubting Thomas. Entire bodies have also been venerated, such as that of St. Mark.
Other faith traditions are no less enthusiastic. In Sri Lanka a revered temple houses the Buddha’s tooth, while the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul safeguards what is believed to be the beard of the Prophet Muhammad. These objects are treated with reverence, displayed for pilgrims, and thought to convey spiritual benefits to those who touch or simply behold them.
Thus, relics serve as physical conduits between the mortal and the sacred, offering believers a concrete reminder that sanctity can be preserved, even after the flesh has faded.
9. War Trophies
In the brutal theater of war, the victorious have often turned the bodies of the vanquished into macabre trophies. While popular culture frequently points to Native American scalping as the archetype, the practice predates the New World. The Greek historian Herodotus records that Scythian warriors were required to present an enemy scalp to their king as early as the fifth century BC.
Scalps were not the only body parts seized as proof of death. During the colonial era, frontiersmen in North America collected scalps to claim bounty payments, and the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 16th century saw samurai cut off the noses of their foes, later storing them in “nose tombs.”
Napoleon Bonaparte’s own post‑mortem fate turned his remains into a bizarre souvenir market. After his death on Saint Helena, a physician autopsied him, bagging internal organs and even an external piece. The doctor’s priest reportedly kept a few ribs, and the emperor’s penis was eventually auctioned for $3,000, now locked away in New Jersey. The story of its diminutive size has become a footnote in the annals of odd war memorabilia.
These gruesome collectibles underscore how, in the heat of conflict, human fragments can become trophies, symbols of victory, and, oddly enough, commodities.
8. Decoration
When most people think of art, they picture paint on canvas, not rotting flesh. Yet some artists and religious practitioners have turned human bone and tissue into striking decorative objects, creating a macabre aesthetic that is both beautiful and unsettling.
In Tibetan ritual, bones are sometimes carved into elaborate patterns to fashion an “apron” worn during special ceremonies. Similarly, kapalas—cups fashioned from human skulls—play a central role in Tantric rites, often inlaid with gold, silver, and precious stones, and displayed reverently on altars.
European fascination with anatomical art reached a fever pitch in 18th‑century France, where the anatomist‑artist Honoré Fragonard produced a series of “flayed men.” By skinning hundreds of cadavers, he crafted sculptures that revealed the inner musculature and organs, merging scientific curiosity with artistic flamboyance.
Fragonard’s most infamous work, “The Horseman of the Apocalypse,” depicts a fully flayed rider and steed surrounded by a crowd of tiny, skeletal fetuses riding sheep and horse fetuses. These eerie creations still hang in the Musée Fragonard d’Alfort in Paris, reminding visitors that the line between anatomy and art can be razor‑thin.
7. Medical Science
Perhaps the most conventional reason to retain body parts after death is to advance medical knowledge. The systematic study of anatomy exploded in the 18th century, fueled in part by “resurrectionists” who exhumed fresh graves to supply cadavers for dissection.
These “donated” bodies were often displayed before eager audiences of medical students, curious amateurs, and even bored gentlemen who craved a touch of the morbid. Notorious figures like the surgeon Robert Knox built careers on public demonstrations, while infamous grave‑robbers Burke and Hare supplied corpses for a fee, blurring the line between science and crime.
Modern attempts to revive public anatomy lectures in Edinburgh have met with resistance, yet the tradition of body donation persists. Today, volunteers still bequeath their bodies to science, allowing students to spend months, sometimes a full year, dissecting a single cadaver to master the intricacies of human anatomy.
Although many medical schools now favor preserved specimens and digital imaging, there remains a consensus that hands‑on dissection provides irreplaceable insight for aspiring surgeons. Once the educational journey concludes, the remains are either cremated privately or returned to families for burial, and many of the attending staff attend the funerals—a sobering reminder of the human stories behind the science.
6. Just Plain Weird
Jeremy Bentham, the 18th‑century philosopher famed for his utilitarian doctrine, left behind a legacy that is as eccentric as his ideas. A staunch atheist who championed universal suffrage and the decriminalization of homosexuality, Bentham rejected traditional Christian burial rites.
In accordance with his wishes, Bentham’s body was dissected after his death, and his skeleton was reassembled into an auto‑icon—a life‑size wooden cabinet that houses his remains, topped with a wax head. This display sits in a corridor at University College London, where it is occasionally wheeled into Council meetings, though the myth that it is “present but not voting” has been debunked.
The original wax head deteriorated over time and was removed, now kept in UCL’s collections and displayed on rare occasions. In 2006, Bentham’s remains were again tapped by scientists who extracted DNA from his head in an effort to determine whether the famed prodigy might have been autistic, adding yet another layer of curiosity to his post‑mortem fame.
5. To Prevent Death
In some remote corners of Uganda, body parts are harvested not for art or reverence, but as a twisted form of prophylaxis. Local witch doctors claim that the blood and organs of deceased children can ward off disease, ensure prosperity, and even stave off death itself.
Since the first documented child sacrifice in 1998, investigators have uncovered more than 700 mutilated bodies. These murders are typically orchestrated by witch doctors who harvest blood for its alleged curative powers, then sell the harvested parts as talismans to desperate families seeking wealth or health.
Although the practice is illegal and condemned by both national and international bodies, it persists in isolated rural communities where secrecy shrouds the ceremonies. The grim reality underscores how, in some contexts, the preservation of body fragments is driven by belief in literal, life‑saving magic.
4. Made Into Objects
Human remains have occasionally been transformed into everyday objects, turning the macabre into the mundane. The Romantic poet Lord Byron, for instance, possessed a drinking cup crafted from a human skull, its rim edged with silver. Legend holds that the skull was unearthed by Byron’s gardener at Newstead Abbey, and the poet delighted in its morbid novelty.
Even more unsettling was the fate of William Lanne, one of the last surviving Aboriginal Tasmanians from the Furneaux Islands. Colonial settlers, viewing him as a “missing link,” subjected his body to scientific curiosity. After his death, his head was removed, and his scrotum was fashioned into a novelty tobacco pouch, a grotesque souvenir displayed by the Royal Society of Tasmania.
These objects illustrate how, in certain historical moments, the dead have been reduced to curiosities, their parts repurposed for drinking, smoking, or exhibition, blurring the line between reverence and exploitation.
3. (A Kind Of) Magic
Across sub‑Saharan Africa, the practice of juju—an intricate system of magic and spiritual power—often incorporates human body fragments as potent ingredients. Practitioners believe that personal items such as hair, nails, menstrual blood, and even organ tissue can capture an individual’s essence.
These substances are ground, mixed, and infused into amulets or talismans, which are then used to protect the wearer or, conversely, to inflict harm. The belief holds that a piece of a person’s body can bind their spirit, giving the magician leverage over them.
Disturbingly, juju has been weaponized to control women, with priests demanding body parts as part of coercive rituals, and even trafficking them as objects of sexual exploitation. The fear of magical retribution often silences victims, allowing the practice to persist in secretive communities.
2. As Room Fittings
The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic showcases perhaps the most flamboyant use of skeletons as interior décor. A massive chandelier, composed of thousands of human bones, hangs from the ceiling, while the walls are lined with skulls arranged into decorative patterns. In total, roughly 40,000 corpses contributed to this macabre masterpiece, complete with a bone‑cross.
Similar bone‑laden sanctuaries exist elsewhere. In Rome, the Church of Our Lady of the Conception of the Capuchins houses the remains of about 4,000 friars, displayed not in crypts but as wall‑mounted skulls, with three complete Capuchin skeletons greeting visitors at the entrance.
Poland’s Czermna chapel pushes the concept even further: every surface—from walls to ceilings—is plastered with bones of plague and war victims, totaling around 20,000 remains, with an additional 20,000 stored in the basement. The chapel’s founder, priest Vaclav Tomasek, even placed his own skull on the altar after his death, cementing the space’s dedication to the dead.
1. Proof Of Kill
In the brutal theater of war, body parts have also served as grim evidence of a successful kill. During Japan’s 16th‑century incursions into Korea, samurai warriors were paid per enemy killed, and they documented their victories by severing and preserving noses—sometimes ears—as trophies.
These macabre souvenirs were stored in “nose tombs,” and in the 1980s archaeologists uncovered one such tomb containing over 20,000 pickled noses. The debate over repatriation continues: some Korean groups demand the return of these remains, while others argue they should be respectfully destroyed.
Today, the noses and many ears rest in a nine‑meter‑high mound known as the “Ear Mound” in Kyoto, maintained at public expense by the Japanese government—a lingering reminder of a conflict that still haunts collective memory.