Photos show ancient ‘vampire’ burials in Europe, including some unusual ritals

Last month, archaeologists uncovered a ‘vampire’ burial site in Poland with a skeleton having a sickle across its neck, and a padlock on its toe – as experts reveal what the bizarre tradition means

Archeologists have recently discovered a series of human remains, who may have been thought to be ‘ vampires ‘ during their lifetime.

Scientists uncovered the human burial site in Poland last month which contained skeletons with sickles across their body.

This is the latest in a string of bizarre burial sites found in Europe, where other skeletons have been found with stones down the throat and stones inside the mouths of skeletons, presumably to keep them rising from the grave.

And according to the experts, there are particular reasons why humans have been buried in this way. Here is what the strange burial rituals look like and mean:

1. Something in the back of the mouth

One way to distinguish whether or not a burial is one of a vampire is to look for something obstructing the mouth of the deceased – like a brick or stone.

Matteo Borrini, principal lecturer of forensic anthropology at the Liverpool John Moore University, discovered the body of a 16th century woman in Lazzaretto Nuovo, Venice with a brick shoved in her mouth.

The woman – nicknamed ‘Carmilla’ – was found within a mass grave. While not much is known about her identity, archeologists confirmed that she died during a deadly outbreak of bubonic plague.

Borrini, who was the lead scientist at the dig said: “I had to find an explanation for someone actually manipulating the body of a person with a deadly disease”.

After uncovering that the woman was thought to be a Nachzehrer – a type of vampire in old European folklore – he said: “It’s not the classical idea that the vampire is going out and sucking the blood of people. It’s more someone that is killing people from the grave before being able to then rise as a full vampire.

“What I found was that there was this tradition that said they were bodies of people believed to be responsible for spreading the plague around. These bodies were not completely dead and were captured by some demonic influence,” said Borrini, describing the old beliefs.

“And they were chewing their shroud inside their graves and spreading the plague in a sort of black magical way,”

Therefore, by placing a brick in her mouth, it would keep the Nachzehrer from chewing their way out of the ground, and so protect the living from the disease.

However, it seems that Carmilla was not considered a vampire during her lifetime, however. Borrini’s work showed that the mass grave was reopened after Carmilla was buried. It has been claimed that grave diggers assumed the body was possessed as it was fresh with shroud, and decomposed around the mouth. This is what may have lead them to place the brick in there.

2. A stake hammered through the body

While modern depictions of vampires describe them as having a stake through the heart, it was originally thought that people who buried the bodies actually did so to make sure they wouldn’t get out of the grave.

Bozhidar Dimitrov who headed the National History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria told Reuters that the stake would have been pierced through the body in order to pin it to the bottom of the grave.

Meanwhile, Borrini added that another way to keep the body in the grave – both spiritually and physically – would have been to nail down the shroud that they were wrapped in, to weigh them down with stones.

3. A stone weighing down the throat

A body that was found in a cemetery in Drawsko, Poland, is also thought to be a vampire burial – which was one of six that had a so-called ‘deviant’ burial performed on them.

Two of the bodies were found with stones under their chins, and a 2014 study revealed that this may have been done in order to prevent them from biting others, or keep them from feeding.

4. A sickle across the throat

And last month, in another cemetery in Poland – in Pień – a skeleton was found with a sickle across its neck, and a padlock on her left big toe.

Though the remains are still under investigation, in the 2014 study, the authors said these were intended to remove the head or open the gut should the corpses attempt to rise from the grave.

Jordan Wilson, the lead bio archeologist for the Villa Romana di Poggio Gramignano archeological project, said: “In a lot of cultures, metal has special ritual and magical significance. So it could have a dual purpose: the physical pinning down or binding, but also the kind of ritual binding”.

5. A stone in the mouth

A child, who died at about the age of 10, was found buried with a stone in its mouth while in a child cemetery in the Poggio Gramignano ancient Roman villa in Teverina, Italy.

The stone may have been a way to keep the child’s body or spirit from spreading the disease or generally tormenting the living.

Jordan Wilson said: “There’s also a very ancient idea of breath being linked to life and the soul and the mouth in particular as being sort of the portal through which the soul exits after death.”

She also bizarrely added that the Romans thought witches had the power to raise the dead and use their souls, saying: “It could also have been with the intent to keep the child’s body safe from witches”.

These are all myths that still scare people to this day…

Borrini has revealed that while the myths originated centuries ago, he still receives phone calls from people who are worried about vampires today.

He said: “Over the decades, I have received calls from different people asking me: ‘I know that you studied the vampires. I’m thinking that I am one of those,’ ‘Oh, I think that my boyfriend is one of those’.”

Meanwhile, Wilson has said that while these remain a mystery, there is actually a lot to be learned about the culture through these beliefs.

She said: “As an archaeologist, it’s important to remember that the people in the past are very much like us today. The fears and anxieties that people had still exist. We just talk about them and express them in different ways.

“Our monsters never really go away. They just change shape.”