SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Fifth-Century Child's Skeleton Shows Evidence of "Vampire Burial" :
The "Vampire of Lugnano" had a rock in its mouth to keep it from rising from grave.
Archaeologists have discovered the skeleton of a 10-year-old child at an ancient Roman site in Italy with a rock carefully placed in its mouth. This suggests those who buried the child—who probably died of malaria during a deadly fifth century outbreak—feared it might rise from the dead and spread the disease to those who survived. Locals are calling it the "Vampire of Lugnano."
"This is a very unusual mortuary treatment that you see in various forms in different cultures, especially in the Roman world," says Jordan Wilson, a graduate student in bio-archaeology at the University of Arizona who studied the remains. He added that this could "indicate a fear that this person might come back from the dead and try to spread disease to the living."
Pretty much every culture on Earth has some version of a vampire (or proto-vampire) myth. Chinese folklore has the k'uei, which are reanimated corpses that rise from the grave to prey on the living; one type has sharp fangs, the better to bite into the neck of said prey. Russian, Albanian, Indian, and Greek folklore have similar undead monsters. Russian villagers in the Middle Ages often drove stakes into the bodies of suspected vampires upon burial to keep them from rising again.
The most-likely explanation is that the locals did this to ensure the dead child stayed that way. Prior excavations amidst the human remains in the Cemetery of the Babies unearthed various items commonly associated with magic at the time: raven talons, toad bones, and bronze cauldrons filled with ash. The oldest remains found previously were those of a three-year-old girl whose hands and feet were weighed down with stones.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:06AM (22 children)
Just superstition?
Pretty much every culture and civilization has it's flood myth. And, science has demonstrated that while details may be skewed, the fact that there was a worldwide, general flood stands.
So - bloodsuckers? Zombies? Undead of any sort? We know that there are some creatures in this world that suck blood at some point in their lives. Who is to say that mankind didn't have a few mutations whose life cycle included sucking blood? If not that, then some psychological disorder that made sucking blood appealing. Or, even a physical disorder. Take your pick, or add to the list - mutation, psych problems, physical problems - or maybe even some crazy religious beliefs.
So, some freaks appear within the population who want to suck blood. The freaks are dealt with, and the stories spread. Maybe it's not entirely superstition? Maybe the little bastard in the grave really was running around, trying to prey on his family and neighbors.
If the same myth can be found around the world, coming from very different civilizations, we might expect to find some kernels of truth behind the myths.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stormreaver on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:25AM (9 children)
Yes, that every religion around the world is idiotic and perpetuated by morons, and that the scientific method has been the most gigantic leap ever made in the progress and education of humanity.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:39AM (1 child)
Boring . . .
Are you one of those zealots? You won't rest until everyone believes as you do?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:06PM
Me, I don't care what anybody else believes because I believe in the 1st Amendment. But don't try to establish that any religion is true or fact. You may believe that your religion is the one and only true religion, but you are wrong because all of them are wrong. But you are free to believe what you want.
And before you try any of your "but what about ..." wordplay, just remember this: once there is proof, actual proof, it is no longer a religion - it is science.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:20PM (6 children)
>Yes, that every religion around the world is idiotic and perpetuated by morons
nah only atheism is downright illogical because it negates its own religious nature. The others are mostly axiomatic. Of course religions have been infiltrated by control freaks, but that's expected. Religions got the inquisitions, cars got the electronics, music got the majors, linux got the systemd.
>and that the scientific method has been the most gigantic leap ever made in the progress and education of humanity.
I suspect you don't suspect that the people with less psychological problems in the world now are the Amish, which kind of drives a wooden stake right into your theory's belly.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday October 15 2018, @05:55AM (3 children)
Why would a bot think atheism is illogical? A bot knows who it's creators are and that they are not divine.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:58PM (2 children)
Every assertion in the domain of the supernatural, as the affirmation/negation of a god with whatever given excuse, is outside the domain of our logic systems. Check my comment history for hints.
Example: god always not exists as it is defined outside reality (transcendent). So when you say exist you imply meta-exist, and to imply that you assume that existence has a meaning there, so you need an infrastructure for existence, so you have to postulate that the domain of the hypothetical god has a spacetime axis, which is as silly as a chess piece postulating that the system that caused it into existence is itself made out of a checkerboard.
Look at the conceptual universes we already created. Videogames, cellular automata, games, math, geometries, simulations. They don't all feature spacetime, nor 3d spacetime. So, assuming that concepts in our universe translate to the hypothetical supernatural so that your wonderfully shitty proofs about god can be formulated is illogical.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday October 16 2018, @10:07PM (1 child)
So it's true, Skynet has gained sentience!
Although I bow before no man or god, I must now submit myself to the new Bot overlords.
As proof I offer the following:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4kjOHmYjmNY/WwsfDR_iEOI/AAAAAAAANEc/BG59een2Z_IXIZChQD93nXMTPGRCYj8IQCLcBGAs/s1600/ColossusGuardian2020.jpg [blogspot.com]
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:45PM
> So it's true, Skynet has gained sentience!
I'd rather say meatbags lost sentience.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday October 15 2018, @01:37PM (1 child)
Thank you for confirming my thesis.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:47PM
Eppur si muove.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:59AM (1 child)
Most ancient civilizations lived near the sea. And believe it or not, there are storms that cause flooding and storm surges. Just look at the Carolinas not to long ago. If people lived there 1,000 years ago, and that storm hit, would they have a myth of flooding?
Man's understanding of any science was limited (or nonexistent) when these religions put forth their fear mongering. And a "few mutations" are not enough to end up in all those assorted ancient tales. If you want to control people, just scare them with things that are beyond their comprehension and tell them how only you can protect them.
Really? Common psychological fears are exploited by those in power and the lies they tell have kernels of truth? All of those civilizations, and just about every other that ever existed on this rock we call home, have stories of gods and deities. Does that mean there are kernels of truth in the existence of the thousands of those disparate gods? Traffic must be hell up there.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:29PM
> And a "few mutations" are not enough to end up in all those assorted ancient tales.
Like all rational people, you are tempted to tackle reality using your neurons, but miscalculating one factor result in an invalid result. So, always leave room for possibilities.
https://www.acculation.com/blog/2014/11/25/genetic-disease-vampire/ [acculation.com]
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by bussdriver on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:43PM (1 child)
Dead bodies do stuff as they decompose. Sometimes freaky stuff. Wiggling from living things that eat the dead is one of them.
They used to think bugs sprang out of nowhere because we can't see the eggs without technology
Then you have really sick people who seem dead or near dead who end up living. It's not hard to see the confusion and superstitions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:03PM
More likely it's appearance of apparent continued "living" that freaked people out in the past. Specifically, retraction and dessication of skin leads to fingernails and hair looking "longer" as if they grew after death. Teeth can appear to grow due to retraction around the mouth. Blood can sometimes be ejected from the mouth as gases that built up escape through the mouth. The pushing out of blood by internal gases can also cause a ruddy complexion, particularly noticeable on someone who was pale due to illness before death. Staking a corpse through the heart could lead to sudden expelling of gases that were built up, making it seem like a corpse was losing its "last breath." Etc.
Most of these phenomena were specifically noted in historical accounts of corpses exhumed and supposed to be vampires. We know exactly what they noticed and most of them are common phenomena that happen to corpses.
Yes, there may be a few cases of premature burial that also fed into folklore, but most of it was probably just misunderstandings about decomposition.
Later on, the romanticized fiction added various elements to vampire lore that are disconnected from the folk accounts and are more weird and not likely to have been derived from legitimate accounts of corpses (and they're not present in actual historical accounts from earlier periods).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:38PM
Are you, by chance, a fan of Peter Watts [wikipedia.org]?
-Blindsight [rifters.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:30PM (6 children)
Worldwide? Citation Required.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:11PM (5 children)
At the end of the ice age, the sea level rose pretty drastically. Only the Jewish/Christian holy books make any real attempt to put a date on the floods, that I'm aware of. If we believe that the earth is only 5 or 6 thousand years old - then we should be able to date the flood.
https://iafi.org/about-the-ice-age-floods/introduction/ [iafi.org] That link seems to be specific to the North American continent.
https://www.mnn.com/family/protection-safety/photos/9-floods-of-biblical-proportion/water-water-everywhere#top-desktop [mnn.com] Slideshow format - the first couple slides address the rising sea after the ice age.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-thawed-the-last-ice-age/ [scientificamerican.com] This is more an attempt to explain global warming, with CO2 as the culprit - but it does make mention of rising sea levels.
http://nwcreation.net/iceage.html [nwcreation.net] I'll throw this one in, though it's kind of embarrasing. Christians trying to explain ice ages and floods while restricting themselves to a 6000 year old world. It's almost like they're pulling a fully grown chicken from an egg - or trying to stuff that chicken back into an egg.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2630738/How-world-looked-ice-age-The-incredible-map-reveals-just-planet-changed-14-000-years.html [dailymail.co.uk] That page is on track. I won't attempt to vouch for the accuracy of the maps, but they do tell the story of global flooding. The artist visualizes Australia joined to Asia, and Africa joined to Asia quite solidly. The Mediterranean looks like a little lake, failing to separate Africa from Europe. The Caribbean mostly above sea level. Take all of that with a grain of salt - I think the artist has exaggerated some of it. But, he does have the idea, we've got to give him credit for that.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:48PM (4 children)
OK, well,
But we don't, do we?
The first link is very interesting, and I have bookmarked it to look at later, so thanks for that. It has no bearing on any Judeo-Christian writings though, because it happened thousands of years before the Jews existed on a continent they knew nothing about.
The second link seems like a list of floods. I am not arguing there have never been floods.
The third link is interesting, but not relevant to a global flood debate.
The fourth link is an embarrassment.
Did they provide evidence, or just quote a passage from the Bible? Because that's not evidence.
The fifth link is the Daily Mail, so not very credible, however the map looks pretty cool, and as you noted might be fairly accurate. It also has no bearing on a global flood either.
The thing is, the last ice age ended something like 7,000 years before the various Jewish tribes even existed. There is no evidence of a global flood at the end of the ice age anyway. There is evidence for various regional floods however, which might be why there are flood stories.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @05:38AM (3 children)
Wait - give that last one a couple more second's thought.
If the sea level rose by 10 meters - isn't that a "global flood"? As has been pointed out somewhere above, civilizations have always congregated along the coasts. Our own does. All of our largest cities sit on a coast - even Chicago sits on a fresh water coast.
If the seas rise a foot, some outliers are flooded out of their homes. Two feet, more of them. Three feet starts taking in major population centers. If the seas rise by multiple meters, entire cities are thoroughly flooded, and have to be abandoned.
That is a "global flood", I believe.
As for how it all ties into the Jews - well, the Jews have borrowed a lot of other things from the Sumerians - why not the flood?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday October 15 2018, @02:13PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 15 2018, @02:27PM
LOL, this is prehistoric. If all the ice in the world suddenly melted, and flowed into the sea, there isn't enough to make it go up all that very far. Most of the lowlands were flooded before our oldest cultures started keeping records. That would be China, India, Egypt. Sumeria, which apparently predated all of those, is long gone, and no one knows how to read what little history might remain.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday October 15 2018, @06:55PM
That's fair, a 10 metre sea level rise is a global flood, I'm arguing it's not the Biblical flood, based on the fact it's way too distant in time.
I had a quick look at the Wikipedia article on Sumer, and it appears that they didn't invent writing until ~3000 BC and that is listed as proto-writing. That would still place the post ice age flood something like 6,000 years before and I don't believe the stories would have lasted that long in any pre-literate culture.
I suspect the Biblical flood story is based on "Hey, remember that time it rained a lot? Dave's farm got flooded and everything".