[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

The Last Alliance had been victorious and controlled Mordor, so I don't see how Sauron's body could have been snatched away like that. In any case, Isildur, Elrond, and Círdan had been present, and it doesn't seem likely any of Sauron's servants stuck around to face them, when even the Nazgûl had run away.

My only real answer to that (and I admit it's weak) is that it could have been grabbed by those fleeing, say a residual Wainrider (if any of them had survived the dead Marshes) and his chariot (sauron is supposed to be only slightly above normal human stature so a single chariot would proably have been enough to convey it. As for how they could of gotten away with it, stopping them may not have been high on Elrond, Isildur and Cirdan's itinerary. Sauron was dead as far as they were concerned and his army was in full retreat, the fact they had picked up his body on the way may not have mattered much to them, any more than pusuing the retreating force and making sure they were slaughtered to a man (orc?). They may have thought his forces simply wanted to bury him (or given the kind of forces Suron commanded, eat him), which could have been fine with them one fewer stinking corpse to deal with. The good guys seem to have taken care to bury the dead of both sides (remeber all of the faces in the dead marshes were from graves the, good and bad guys). In fact that may have been the retreating forces actual plant, only being checked later say when they caught up with the WK (as Saurons second in Command (more or less) one would assume any residual army would rally around him, if they could find him and he gave them order to bear the body somewhere safe (with his knowedge of magics dark (he probably was no slouch at necromancy either, if he could call up the barrow wights) he may have guessed what might happen down the road. In fact the only person of the three I can imagine caring if the body was lost would be Isildur, and that only if his desire for showing off his triumph meant he wanted to march Home with Sauron's head on a pike.

Sauron's power was diminished each time he was forced to rebody, so maybe he couldn't have it exactly the way he wanted, at least not without additional expenditure of his remaining power. Also, and this is only a theory, perhaps his remaining "maimed" in his physical appearance was somehow tied to his "maimed" (Ringless) spirit. After all, Sauron had lost his original Mair ability to appear in any guise he wanted.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

That's likely true. However, Sauron's body was fully incarnate, wasn't it? Like the Istari. Look what happened to Saruman's body when he was killed.

Incarnate yes, but incarnate isn't the same thing as human. Saruman and the Istari weren't merely sent incarnate they were specifically sent as incarnate and human. Thier maiar spirit was what kept them immune from age, more or less; when Saruman was killed what you had left was a human corpse that was centuries if not millenia old all the withering may just have been time catching up with it. Sauron's body may not have been so based. Maybe it was based on an elven plan, how quickly do elven bodies rot? (the closest we get to seeing a dead elf face to face (as far as I know) is in the Dead marshes and Frodo may have had trouble telling noble man from elf there (he does say that some of the faces he sees are "fair" and "noble"). Maybe as long as he had the ring, sauron could keep his body renewed (it does prolong life indefinitely after all) so his dead body might have been as one who had died as a normal person the centuries he had lived not touching it. And if the whole thing was done to purpose the body could have had help to last, maybe the WK had it mummified or enblamed (if he ever examined any of the barrows, he might have had insight into how to do this). Putting an enbalmed body back to full life and heath would have taken more effort than one as it was when the spirit left, but still probably less than making one from scratch.
Actually if he did make one from scratch there might be another reason to make it the same (if he only got one chance) If his consciousness returned before he re-incarnated and more importantly his ability to communicate he may have been able to find out what of his former trappings were left, and took a form that would allow him to re-use them without trouble. Even if his body had not survived things like his armor, his throne etc. might have been kept (or retrived) over the years. they would be small things, but weakend as he was, every little bit might have helped. But I'm basically freewheeling by now