14 DAY TRIAL // A paper published in yesterday's issue of the journal PLOS ONE tells the tale of how, not as far back as some might imagine, six people in Poland believed to be vampires had their bodies horrifically desecrated after death.
Thus, these folks were buried with curved, sharp knives usually used for farming around their necks and also had rocks placed under their jaws to force them shut, archaeologists explain.
The thing is that, rather than being vicious undead creatures with an appetite for human blood, these six very unlucky people were actually locals that fell victim to a cholera epidemic.
Oddly enough, researchers believe that it was precisely because they were killed by cholera that they ended up being considered vampires.
It was a hard knock life and death for them
In their paper in the journal PLOS ONE, archaeologists with the University of Alabama in the US and fellow researchers detail that these people lived and died sometime in the 17th or the 18th century AD.
Their bodies were discovered at an archaeological site commonly referred to as the Drawsko cemetery. The site is located in northwestern Poland and has until now produced the remains of over 300 folks.
Of the people laid to rest in this location, six were found to have been buried with farming knives known as sickles around their necks and rocks pinned to their jaws. Specialists say that this indicates that they were believed to be vampires.
Thus, the sickles were placed around their necks to make sure that, were they to try and rise from their graves, they would be decapitated. The rocks under their jaws, on the other hand, was supposed to keep them from opening their mouth wide enough to bite into a victim.
Having taken the time to analyze the remains of these people, University of South Alabama archaeologist Lesley Gregoricka and colleagues found that they were most likely killed by a cholera epidemic that swept through the region centuries ago.
More precisely, the scientists behind this research project have reasons to believe that these six people were among the first victims that this cholera epidemic that hit northwestern Poland sometime in the 17th or 18th century AD claimed, Science Daily informs.
Their bodies were desecrated because they died of cholera
According to researcher Lesley Gregoricka and colleagues, these six individuals had their bodies horrifically desecrated following their death precisely because they died of cholera.
Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, the specialists explain that, centuries ago, there were four chief categories of people that Poland locals feared would become vampires after death: those who passed away unbaptized, those who died a violent death, immigrants, and those first killed in an epidemic.
Given the age of the six people found buried with sickles around their necks, the chances that they died unbaptized are pretty much slim to none. Having examined their skeletal remains, Lesley Gregoricka and colleagues also ruled out the possibility that they died a violent death.
What's more, evidence obtained while studying the makeup of their bones and teeth revealed that they were not immigrants to the region. On the contrary, they were all almost surely born in the region where they were found buried.
Hence, the one explanation left standing is that these folks were abused after death because, being among the first victims of the cholera epidemic, which likely killed them in a matter of days, maybe even hours, it was believed that they would return as vampires.
“People of the post-medieval period did not understand how disease was spread, and rather than a scientific explanation for these epidemics, cholera and the deaths that resulted from it were explained by the supernatural – in this case, vampires,” explains Dr. Lesley Gregoricka.
