Austrian found hoarding stolen skulls in home museum

VIENNA: An Austrian man is to be charged with disturbing the peace of the dead after police found 56 skulls and 55 other bones at a museum he had created in his home.

Police in the province of Burgenland said the relics were taken without authorization from a church cemetery and had now been returned.

The 47-year-old man, whose name was not immediately released pending his being charged, came to the attention of the police when he tried to sell three skulls and two thigh bones at a flea market, police said.

A police spokesman said he had never encountered such a case in his 37 years in the force and knew neither why the man had collected the bones nor why he had tried to sell some of them.

"But there's nothing new under the sun," he said.