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Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

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Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#21

Post by ggm »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

I remember hearing that there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases... Humans never have valued far enough removed dead... And surely yes, if I were local peasant near battlefield I would go and pick through it after everyone is gone. Or at latest when most of the stink is gone... Metals at least had value.

I was told that by 1946 almost every French farmer from Normandy to the Ardennes had at least one Jerry Can.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#22

Post by weinzierl »

ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

"vaguely disgusting" has another dimension in the modern era. I read once that by contemporary standards human bodies are essentially hazardous waste and every graveyard is essentially a superfund site.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#23

Post by ggm »

weinzierl wrote: post #22
ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

"vaguely disgusting" has another dimension in the modern era. I read once that by contemporary standards human bodies are essentially hazardous waste and every graveyard is essentially a superfund site.

Wouldn't that be the formaldehyde in embalming fluid? And mercury from amalgam fillings.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#24

Post by Someone »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

I remember hearing that there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases... Humans never have valued far enough removed dead... And surely yes, if I were local peasant near battlefield I would go and pick through it after everyone is gone. Or at latest when most of the stink is gone... Metals at least had value.

> there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases

Likely, but it seems they aren’t 100% sure of that at the Encyclopædia Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/list/7-surprising-uses-for-mummie...:

“It was claimed by author Mark Twain that mummies had been used as fuel for locomotives. In his 1869 travel book called The Innocents Abroad, Twain describes the first railroad in Egypt. Because of the lack of trees and the price of coal, Twain claims that the Egyptians used mummies instead. He wrote, “[The fuel used] for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose.””

Also, FTA: “we know the British imported mummies and bones from Egypt on an industrial scale”

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#26

Post by ohwaitnvm »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #7

If there's ever a plane crash I'm looking for cash and watches.

I couldn’t find the right combination of search terms to provide a citation, but I’ve heard stories of plane crashes where locals took the flight data recorder or other critical pieces of evidence from the scene before officials arrived. Rewards had to be announced and paid out to get people to bring back parts so that investigations could proceed.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#27

Post by stevekemp »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

I remember hearing that there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases... Humans never have valued far enough removed dead... And surely yes, if I were local peasant near battlefield I would go and pick through it after everyone is gone. Or at latest when most of the stink is gone... Metals at least had value.

Mummies were also used to make paint:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#28

Post by kombookcha »

ggm wrote: post #23
weinzierl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"vaguely disgusting" has another dimension in the modern era. I read once that by contemporary standards human bodies are essentially hazardous waste and every graveyard is essentially a superfund site.

Wouldn't that be the formaldehyde in embalming fluid? And mercury from amalgam fillings.

Embalming is very rare in places like continental Europe, and large swathes of the non-western world has religious bans on embalming, so formaldehyde in graveyards is almost purely a problem in the anglosphere.

Re: Did grave robbers plunder battlefields?

#30

Post by defrost »

Ekaros wrote: post #20
ggm wrote: post #12

... in the modern era. It's a given that fabric and metals are high cost of production from raw inputs, and pre-mechanisation would be far too valuable to just leave in the fields. Post mechanisation the problem is logistics. (The factory war era pretty much begins with the Napoleonic war: Marc Brunel (Isembards father) made boot making machines and block making machines for the british war supply chain. You can see…

I remember hearing that there were so many mummies around from Egypt that they were used as fuel in some cases... Humans never have valued far enough removed dead... And surely yes, if I were local peasant near battlefield I would go and pick through it after everyone is gone. Or at latest when most of the stink is gone... Metals at least had value.

For a while in Europe it was popular to eat mummies . . .

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-...

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