'Vampire' Found in Mass Grave

[TallGeekyGirl]

(March 9) - A skeleton excavated from a 16th century Venetian grave site may be the earliest example discovered of a body being treated at the time of its burial as a vampire.

http://news.aol.com/article/vampire-...s-grave/375073

[Eddylizard]

She was dead when she was buried - what more evidence did the people need that she was not in point of fact a vampire?

[Horse Chestnut]

At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. This is why the mouth of a suspected vampire would be lodged open with dirt or a brick, Borrini said. (Source: NewsScientist.com)

OK, maybe I'm a little fuzzy on the concept, but did this make sense to anyone, even in the 1500s? I mean, you die, they wrap you in your shroud, you chew on your shroud... and then what? You spit lint at people?

Oooooh! Scary! Watch out! It's a lint vampire!

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Horse Chestnut

OK, maybe I'm a little fuzzy on the concept, but did this make sense to anyone, even in the 1500s? I mean, you die, they wrap you in your shroud, you chew on your shroud... and then what? You spit lint at people?

Oooooh! Scary! Watch out! It's a lint vampire!

I think the concept was to prevent the "vampire" chewing out of the shroud which confined it, thus thwarting its attempts to escape the grave and then go on to infect people.

http://www.zerotime.com/night/prevent.htm

[Sebbenth]

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

She was dead when she was buried - what more evidence did the people need that she was not in point of fact a vampire?

As the joke goes, "I knew my neighbour was a vampire when I put a wooden stake through his heart and he died".

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Sebbenth

As the joke goes, "I knew my neighbour was a vampire when I put a wooden stake through his heart and he died".

*groan* Fangs for that.

[Altered Statesman]

Yeah, I didn't bat an eyelid .

[Eddylizard]

My dad once threw a rock which hit me in the mouth - do you think he was afraid of something?

[Lawgiver]

I was just reading The National Geographic article about this place. What I wonder is why this 1 person out of thousands ? Did they think she was the Typhoid Mary of the plague. Interesting story, and very sad. Poveglia island had the same thing.

[sneeze042]

A lot of vampire folklore says that a person who is bitten by a vampire appears dead, and after being buried comes back alive under darkness and comes out. That's probably why they did things to keep the creepy crawlies in the graves and not on the streets.