Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the 2spooky4me dept.

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...


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:59AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:59AM (#748566)

    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.

    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?

    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?

    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.

    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.

    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

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:29PM (#748701) Journal

    > 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.