Just day after composer Joseph Haydn died in 1809 , grave robbers broke into the cemetery and open his coffin . Unlike other cemetery thieves , they were n’t interested in removing jewellery or other valuables — they simply wanted Haydn ’s skull .
So why are there two heads in his tomb now ?
A couple of Haydn ’s pals , Joseph Carl Rosenbaum and Johann Nepomuk Peter , pay a gravedigger to give them memory access to their friend ’s top dog , lay claim that they wanted to " protect it from blasphemy . " In reality , the pair were avid believer in phrenology and want to see if the composer ’s skull was as developed in musical surface area as expected .
Not content to just " scientifically " examine the head , Peter had a black cabinet made for it and proudly displayed the curiosity in his theatre . At one point , he transferred ownership over to Rosenbaum . The whole affair might have gone unnoticed had Haydn ’s former patron , Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy II , not decided to give the composer a right interment more than a tenner after his death . When Haydn was exhumed from his previous resting station , it became quite apparent that his head had go MIA ( his wig wasstill there , however ) .
Esterhazy ’s investigation result to Rosenbaum and Peter reasonably quickly — it seems they were fond of prove off their unusual specimen — and Rosenbaum reluctantly give rise a skull . Because doctors could see that the skull belonged to an older man , they accept that it belong to to Haydn , who died at the age of 77 . It did n’t .
The truth number out not long afterward , and police force were sent to Rosenbaum ’s abidance to confiscate the goods . tap off to the search , Rosenbaum ’s wife obscure Haydn ’s mind in her straw mattress . When functionary descend to seek her room , sheinformedthem that she was bedrid because she was “ having her days , ” and they would have to leave . They did .
It take well-nigh a century and a one-half , but after145 years , Haydn ’s skull and his organic structure did eventually meet again . After Rosenbaum and Peter had both pass away , the pass shift hands multiple time before finding its way back to the Esterhazy phratry , who hold a ceremony to reunify the composer ’s remains . Of course , by this time , no one knew where the other skull had add up from , so they just left it where it was — and now you know why Haydn ’s grave contains two heads .
