The zombie apocalypse may just be starting, but during the Middle Ages they had an undead threat to deal with of their own – vampires! Several news sites are reporting that two shallow graves were uncovered in Bulgaria, dated from the Middle Ages, and that the remains inside the graves had iron rods pierced through their hearts. Apparently, this is a semi-frequent occurrence and archeologists have found dozens of remains like this across Europe. Well, famous first vampires Nosferatu and Dracula were from Europe, hailing from Romania and Hungary respectively.
Way back when, before bloodletting became the practice, Pagan communities believed that if you were a horrible person in life, then you may return from the dead as a vampire. If that were true today, we’d all be screwed. I guess using an iron rod instead of a wooden stake made more sense in the Middle Ages. Part of the reason why an iron rod was used was to pin the corpse to the bottom of the casket. That way if they woke up, they’d be essentially nailed to the bottom of their grave.
Other practices from the Middle Ages to combat vampires included putting a brick between the person’s teeth (because I guess the vampire couldn’t just take it out with their hands? Quoted from [The Daily News UK], “Last month Italian researchers discovered what they believed to be the remains of a female ‘vampire’ in Venice – buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.”
And if you’re wondering how the vampire myth began, here’s another quote from the same article. “Gravediggers reopening mass graves would sometimes come across bodies bloated by gas, with hair still growing, and blood seeping from their mouths and believe them to be still alive. The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead were often decayed by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the corpse’s teeth, and vampires became known as ‘shroud-eaters’.”
Good to see science and the art of vampire hunting has come such a long way!
