A taxidermied human being, in the traditional sense of the word, does not exist in any legal or widely practiced form. Traditional taxidermy involves stretching an animal’s preserved skin over a sculpted frame, but this technique has never been successfully or routinely applied to human bodies. Human skin changes dramatically when dried, losing its color, texture, and recognizable features in ways that animal hides do not. What does exist are other preservation methods, from skeletal displays to plastination, that have occasionally been used to keep human remains on view. The distinction matters, because the question behind the search is really about whether a human body can be preserved to look lifelike after death, and if so, how.
Why Traditional Taxidermy Fails on Humans
Taxidermy works well on animals because their skin is covered in fur, feathers, or scales that hide imperfections in the preservation process. A taxidermist removes the skin, tans it to prevent decay, then stretches it over a carved or molded form. The fur or feathers do most of the visual work, making the finished mount look realistic.
Human skin has none of those advantages. It’s thin, translucent in places, and its lifelike appearance depends on blood flow, moisture, and fat sitting just beneath the surface. When dried and stretched over a form, it shrinks, discolors, and becomes waxy or leathery. Facial features lose all expression. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham learned this the hard way: when he died in 1832, he had requested that his body be preserved as an “auto-icon” for display. His skeleton was dressed in his own clothes and placed in a wooden cabinet at University College London. But his head, which was preserved using a Maori desiccation technique, went “disastrously wrong,” according to UCL, leaving it shrunken and stripped of any recognizable expression. A wax replica had to be made instead. For years, the real head sat on the floor of the cabinet between Bentham’s feet.
What Exists Instead: Plastination
The closest thing to a “taxidermied” human that most people have encountered is a plastinated body, the kind displayed in exhibitions like Body Worlds. Plastination was invented in 1977 by anatomist Gunther von Hagens, and it works on a fundamentally different principle than taxidermy. Rather than preserving only the outer skin and draping it over a form, plastination replaces all the water and fat inside the body’s actual tissues with durable plastic polymers.
The process has five stages. First, the body is injected with a preservative solution within two to ten days of death to halt decomposition. An anatomist then dissects the specimen, typically removing skin and fat to expose the muscles, organs, or blood vessels they want to highlight. The body is placed in an acetone bath, which dissolves the remaining water and fats. Then comes the critical step: the specimen goes into a vacuum chamber where the pressure drops until the acetone evaporates out of the tissues, and liquid polymer is forced in to take its place. Finally, the polymer is hardened using heat, gas, or light. The entire process can take weeks to months.
The result is a dry, odorless specimen that holds its shape permanently. But plastinated bodies don’t look like living people. They’re typically displayed without skin, posed to show the musculature or circulatory system underneath. Von Hagens’ insight was to put the plastic inside the tissue rather than encasing the tissue in a block of plastic, which earlier methods had done (often obscuring the specimen entirely). Plastination is now widely used in medical education, not just in touring exhibitions.
The Troubled History of Displayed Human Remains
Before plastination, human remains were preserved in other ways for public display, and much of that history is deeply troubling. In the 18th and 19th centuries, body parts were commonly suspended in jars of preservative fluid for medical collections. Some collections went further. A case that drew international attention involved a preserved body known as “El Negro of Banyoles,” the remains of an African man displayed in a museum in Banyoles, Spain. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics brought global scrutiny to the display, and in 2000 the remains became the first African body repatriated to Africa from a European museum. Cases like this sit at the intersection of colonialism, racism, and the history of treating human bodies as curiosities rather than as people deserving dignity.
Nineteenth-century taxidermy shops and curiosity cabinets sometimes included human specimens alongside animal ones. One fictional but historically grounded inventory from the era lists “preserved Indian baby,” “African ditto,” “articulated English baby,” and “dried cuticle, various” right alongside cats, dogs, and ducks. The casual mixing of human and animal remains reflected attitudes about race, class, and bodily autonomy that modern ethics firmly rejects.
Why It’s Illegal Today
No U.S. state permits traditional taxidermy of a human body, even if the deceased person requested it in their will or estate documents. State laws governing the handling of human remains simply don’t allow it. Depending on the jurisdiction, attempting it could fall under abuse of corpse statutes, funeral and burial regulations, or health codes requiring permits for any handling of a dead body.
In the UK, the Human Tissue Act of 2004 requires explicit consent for the public display of human remains, and tightly controls how bodies and body parts can be used after death. Plastination programs like Body Worlds operate within these legal frameworks by obtaining documented consent from donors before death and working under medical or educational exemptions.
International museum standards add another layer. The International Council of Museums requires that human remains be acquired only when they can be “housed securely and cared for respectfully,” consistent with the beliefs of the communities the remains came from. Display must be done “with great tact and respect for the feelings of human dignity held by all peoples.” Museums must also respond promptly and sensitively to requests from originating communities for remains to be removed from display or returned.
Preservation Methods That Are Legal
If someone wants their body preserved after death, there are options that don’t involve taxidermy. Plastination through a body donation program is one, though donors typically end up as anatomical teaching specimens rather than posed figures. Embalming preserves a body temporarily for open-casket funerals but doesn’t prevent long-term decomposition. Cremation followed by incorporation into memorial objects (glass, jewelry, even coral reefs) is increasingly popular.
Some people opt for skeletal articulation, where the skeleton is cleaned, assembled, and wired together for display or educational use. This is closer to what Bentham’s auto-icon actually is: a dressed skeleton with a wax head, not a taxidermied body. Natural mummification and alkaline hydrolysis (sometimes called water cremation) are other alternatives that various jurisdictions permit, though regulations vary widely by state and country.
The core issue is that no existing technology can preserve a human body to look truly lifelike over the long term. Skin without blood flow and living cells will always lose the qualities that make a face recognizable. Wax figures come closer to capturing a person’s appearance than any preserved remains ever have.