Stones, safes and societies

Before the appearance of the iron mortsafes around 1816, large stones were sometimes employed. Ritchie documented a coffin-shaped granite block at Inverurie Churchyard, adding that Inverurie’s proximity to the university at Aberdeen, and the location of its graveyard outside of town, “afforded a tempting means of procuring the specimens required by the students”. Nevertheless, a stone was little detriment. Ritchie explained how a grave robber could dig down on one end of it to the coffin, where they “then fastened a rope round the neck of the corpse and dragged it out, afterwards filling up the hole and removing, as far as possible, all traces of their work”.