In the Book of Mormon, Ammon cuts off the arms of his Lamanite attackers at the waters of Sebus, and his fellow servants take those severed arms and present them to king Lamoni as “a testimony of the things which they had done” (Alma 17:39). Taking the body parts of one’s defeated enemies as trophies of valor and as a witness of how many were killed is a well-known practice throughout the ancient...