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Mata Hari's head -

Mata Hari was the name of a famous exotic dancer who was convicted of espionage during World War I. She grew up in the Netherlands but left her husband and changed her name to become a dancer in Paris.

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Execution -

The French believed that she was working as a spy and sharing state secrets with her German lovers during the war. Whether this is really true or not remains unknown but, regardless, she was convicted and executed in 1917. No family came to collect her remains, so they were donated to the Museum of Anatomy.

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The missing head -

At the museum, her head was embalmed and put on display along with other war criminals from that era. Decades later, in 2000, archivists realized that her head had gone missing. No one had been interested in seeing it for a long time, and it looked like it had been missing for years. It’s suspected that it was simply lost, or that someone stole it when the museum changed buildings in 1954.

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Santa Claus’ bones -

It was common practice to save the bones and other body parts of saints throughout history and keep them as relics. They were given great religious significance and were believed to perform miracles, attracting pilgrimages and giving prestige to whoever had the relic in their possession.

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The bone theft -

When St. Nicholas, the saint that inspired Santa Claus, died, many of his bones were saved and displayed in a town called Myra, located in modern-day Turkey. It was common for towns to organize the theft of relics, so Bari in Italy hired a group of thieves who stole the bones and brought them back. They are still displayed in the town of Bari today!

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King Louis XIV's heart -

When King Louis XIV of France died in 1715, his heart was embalmed and displayed in a chest beside that of his father's in a church in Paris. The rest of his body was buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis. During the French Revolution, these relics of the monarchy were removed and fell into various different hands.

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The heart's journey -

After passing through different hands over the years, it’s said that part of the heart ended up in the possession of the gentile Harcourt family. Legend has it that a rather unusual friend of the Harcourt’s ultimately ended up with the heart.

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William Buckland -

The geologist William Buckland had a reputation for eating anything and everything. His scientific exploration of the animal kingdom was also a gastronomical one. He is said to have enjoyed mice on toast as a snack, and tasted everything from tortoises to puppies. Upon visiting the Harcourts and seeing their unique possession, he reportedly said, “I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king before.” He then allegedly proceeded to eat the piece of mummified heart!

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Galileo’s tooth and finger -

The famous astronomer Galileo was lucky to be buried with all of his body parts intact. However, when his body was moved to a much grander tomb in Florence almost a century later, some opportunistic fans made off with a few pieces of his remains. They got away with three fingers, a tooth, and one of his vertebrae.

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The finger -

One finger was taken by an antiquarian named Anton Francesco Gori, who took good care of it. It was displayed in the famous Laurentian Library for a period, but ended up at Florence’s Museum of the History of Science.

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The mystery jar -

The vertebrae can be traced to the University of Padua, where it’s still on display today. The two other fingers and the tooth disappeared for several centuries, but a jar with those exact items was put up for auction in Italy in 2009 and sold for a pittance. The buyer took the bones to the Institute and Museum of the History of Science where it was confirmed that they belonged to Galileo.

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Napoleon Bonaparte's... privates -

The exiled French leader Napoleon Bonaparte died on the island of St. Helena in 1821. The doctor who performed his autopsy claimed that he took a rather intimate keepsake from the famous ruler’s body.

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The rogue pathologist -

The doctor removed Napoleon's most prized appendage and gave it to a priest. The priest left it to his family in Corsica when he died. They sold it to an English bookseller, who sold it to an American bookseller, and it was even put on display in the Museum of French Art in New York in 1927! After that, it was purchased for US$3,000 by a respected urologist, who considered it a precious artefact of his field.

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The family jewels -

While it’s hard to keep track of the authenticity of traveling body parts over centuries, it was verified that the appendage in the doctor’s possession was definitely from a human male! However, was it really Napoleon’s?

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Buddha’s tooth -

The original Buddha, Gautama Buddha, who founded the Buddhist religion, died sometime between 544 and 368 BCE. He was cremated, but a disciple named Khema is said to have saved a single tooth from the funeral pyre.

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The traveling tooth -

Khema brought the tooth to the Hindu kingdom, where it was worshipped for centuries. After that, the tooth traveled far and wide. Many rulers were desperate to possess it, while others sought to destroy it.

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Temple of the Tooth -

Eventually the tooth was sent to the Sri Lankan city of Kandy during the 12th century, where it has lived ever since. The Catholic Church tried to destroy it multiple times, but failed. It can now be visited at the Sri Dalada Maligawa, also known as the Temple of the Tooth.

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Oliver Cromwell's head -

Oliver Cromwell is another historic figure who went to his grave without his head. Cromwell led an army against King Charles in the English Civil War of the 17th century. The monarchy was reinstated after his death and royalists decided to exhume his body and remove it from its burial place at Westminster Abbey.

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The price of rebellion -

Instead of reburying the body at a less prestigious location, they hung it from the Tyburn gallows as a symbolic execution. His head was later cut off and displayed on top of a wooden spike outside Westminster for what might have been 30 years.

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The many heads of Oliver Cromwell -

It’s said that the head fell down during a violent storm and a guard took it home. It traveled between different hands in England for the next couple of centuries, and by the 1800s multiple people claimed to have it in their possession. The most likely owner was a surgeon named Josiah Henry Wilkinson. Scientific tests in 1934 suggest that it may truly have been Cromwell’s head. The Wilkinson family finally gave it a proper burial in 1960.

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George Washington’s hair -

George Washington was most famous for his wooden teeth, but it’s his hair that has withstood the test of time! Giving a lock of hair as a keepsake was a common practice during his lifetime, so these scraps of hair became hot commodities after his death.

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George Washington’s hair -

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow inherited a lock of Washington’s hair from his grandfather, a congressman who had worked with Washington. He was given a lock of the founding father’s hair by his wife, Martha Washington, and it was passed down in the family. In 1899, it was donated to the Maine Historical Society.

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George Washington’s hair -

An archivist at Union College in New York made an incredible discovery in 2018. He found another strand of George Washington’s hair hidden in an envelope inside a 1793 almanac. It was accompanied by a letter that showed it had belonged to Eliza Hamilton, the wife of the famous Alexander Hamilton.

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Jeremy Bentham's head -

The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham was an advocate for donating one’s body to science after death. However, he had some interesting ideas about how it should work. Years before his death, Bentham wrote an essay about what he called “auto-icons.”

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The auto-icon -

The idea was this: when you die, your family donates your body to science but get to keep the skeleton and the head. Your skeleton is dressed in your clothes, which are then stuffed with hay to look more realistic. They place your mummified head on top, creating a horrifying lifelike statue of you!

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Why!? -

Although the idea is unbelievably macabre, Bentham's reasons were pretty good. For one, it meant that scientists would have plenty of cadavers to study and train with. Additionally, there would no longer be any need for expensive cemetery plots or graveyards. He also claimed that it would “diminish the horrors of death,” although some would dispute that…

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Where is it now? -

Bentham’s own auto-icon still sits on display in the student center at University College London, although his real mummified head isn’t with it. The head was originally placed at Bentham’s feet, but was stolen by students from a rival college in 1975. Once it was returned, they decided to lock the head away in a safe.

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St. Francis Xavier's toe -

St. Francis Xavier is remembered for his missionary work and his help founding the Jesuit order. When he died in 1552, his body was sent to Goa, where he had done a lot of work. The event was met with a great deal of excitement, with worshippers coming from all over to view the body, which hadn’t visibly composed at all.

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Signs of sainthood -

The supposed lack of decomposition is a feature common in the legends of many saints, and was believed to mean that the body was pure and incorrupt. Further evidence of his sainthood was discovered in a bizarre manner.

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The missing toe -

A woman visiting his body reportedly bent over and bit off one of his toes. Fresh blood spurted everywhere as if he was still alive. The toe signified a miracle and was passed down in her family for generations. The rest of his body is displayed as a relic, but the toe is still missing.

Sources: (Mental Floss) (Time) 

See also: The bizarre burial requests of Queen Victoria

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