Grave Robber: the story of Andreas Reischek

In the 1880s Austrian naturalist and ethnographer Andreas Reischek stole four mummified Māori corpses and smuggled them out of the country so they could be displayed at a museum in Vienna. He also shot hundreds of native New Zealand birds to preserve them "for science".

In the 1880s Andreas Reischek stole four mummified corpses from an urupa near Kawhia so he could sell them to a museum in his native Austria.

The bodies made up just a fraction of a gigantic collection of preserved birds, lizards and Māori artifacts which Andreas collected while travelling around New Zealand.

Unsurprisingly the theft of the bodies has seen Reischek branded an arch-villain of history, but researcher and translator Dr Sascha Nolden has uncovered new information about Reischek which, while not excusing his actions, does shed some light on his motivations.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details