c/europe@feddit.org · CAVOK@lemmy.world · 29 Aug 2026 21:17

Gruesome Discovery Shows 17th-Century Villagers Were Terrified of What Lurked in 'Grave 75'

ScienceAlert Gruesome Discovery Shows 17th-Century Villagers Were Terrified of What Lurked in 'Grave 75' Polish countryside, 17th century.

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@Warl0k3@lemmy.world · 29 Aug 2026

TL;DR:

Vampire burial - lock around big toe, sickle over neck. Doing both is apparently uncommon and indicates the townsfolk were real spooked.

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- @inari@piefed.zip · 29 Aug 2026
  
  Archaeologists sometimes refer to these types of graves as “anti-vampiric,” despite the fact that the term only came into widespread use in Europe in the 18th century. Although news reports sensationally identified Zosia as a “vampire,” in this context, the label more accurately functions “as a broader category denoting a demonic being,” the authors write in the paper. In the 17th century, people might have been classified as “demonic” or “vampiric” simply because they were outsiders to the local community, religious heretics or orphans. Those who died by suicide, drowning, in childbirth or under other tragic circumstances might also be viewed with suspicion.
  
  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-was-this-17th-century-polish-woman-buried-with-a-padlock-on-her-toe-and-an-iron-sickle-across-her-neck-180989408/
  
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  - @KurtVonnegut@mander.xyz · 30 Aug 2026
    
    ““It’s really ironic, in a way,” Nilsson told Reuters’ Thomas Holdstock in 2024. “These people burying her, they did everything they could in order to prevent her from coming back from the dead. … We have done everything we can in order to bring her back to life.””
    
    What have we done 😱
    
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  - @HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 30 Aug 2026 · edited
    
    The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is my favorite vampire novel written by someone I don’t know (a friend wrote a bodice ripper and that’s in #1. I gotta wait for my wife to finish it so I can read it and decide whether it’s actually my favorite HURRY UP AND READ, WIFE. apparently one of the characters is named after me. And he’s schmexy!) and one of the things that can turn you into a vampire is if a dog barks while you’re dead, and you hear it
    
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