exhumer

plural exhumers

1. One who exhumes.

   In the medieval period monks were enthusiastic exhumers of the mortal remains of the holiest of individuals.

   2005, J. Patrick Greene, Medieval Monasteries, page 56

   4 more examples

   […] he had also satisfied his mind that it had been done consistently with the rights of man, although neither Paine, nor the exhumer of his bones had ever ventured into his country, to instil into the ductile minds of the natives the principles of their philosophy.

   1835, William Light, The Last Voyage, page 346

   Lucia del Monte, in that city he painted a picture representing Pope St. Pasquale, a great church-builder and exhumer of holy corpses.

   1848, William Stirling Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain, page 992

   As each skull was taken out, the exhumer held it up to the view of the onlookers, when a wailing cry would be heard as they greeted the remains of their dead relative.

   1910, Memoirs of the Polynesian Society, N.Z.: Polynesian Society, page 72

   Resurrectionist: […] since about 1776, an exhumer and stealer of corpses which were later (or perhaps better, sooner) sold to anatomists for dissection and research.

   1996, Fritz Spiegl, Fritz Spiegl's Sick Notes, page 137