Thieves tried to steal the ashes of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and his wife from a crematorium in London, severely damaging a 2,400-year-old urn that housed their remains, police said Wednesday.
Detectives urged the public to help catch the “callous” people responsible following the attempted theft of the 4th century BC Greek urn sometime around New Year’s Eve.
“This was a despicable act by a callous thief,” said Detective Constable Daniel Chandler of the Metropolitan Police.
“Even leaving aside the financial value of the irreplaceable urn and the historical significance to whom it related, the fact that someone set out to take an object knowing it contained the last remains of a person defies belief.”
Freud died in September 1939 and his ashes were placed in the urn in Golders Green Crematorium near his home. Martha Freud’s ashes were added after her death in 1951.
Freud was given the urn—which depicts Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy—by his close friend and fellow psychoanalyst Princess Marie Bonaparte.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-01-thieves-sigmund-freud-ashes-london.html#jCp
