Well past the beginning of the last century, it was not uncommon for intrepid and wealthy Europeans visiting Africa to bring along a taxidermist or two. A safari could always yield a prize rhino or lion that would need stuffing. But, in 1830, a pair of French taxidermists took their trade a further step, exhuming the body of a deceased African man from the Kalahari desert. They had the corpse embalmed and stuffed for show in Europe, its light skin polished black to make him look more "African" a sign of an era when such racialized curiosity in other (and often subject) peoples was common throughout the Western world. The body ended up on display in a small museum in the northern Spanish town of Banyoles for the better part of century until a local doctor of Haitian descent complained about it in 1992. The ensuing controversy drummed up much support in the town among those who wanted to keep the specimen commemorative chocolates were issued celebrating the man known simply as "El Negro" but the body was eventually returned to Botswana in 2000 and given a full burial in front of hundreds of local dignitaries and foreign diplomats.
Top 10 Famous Stolen Body Parts
In a ceremony on May 9, a French museum in the town of Rouen returned to officials from New Zealand the embalmed head of a Maori warrior, which had languished in the museum as an exotic collectible for over a century. TIME takes a look at history's other notable pilfered remains.