Recently Discovered 'Vampire' Could Have Been Saved by Invisalign

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The remains of a woman believed to be a vampire were unearthed in a Polish cemetery. But it may all have been a misunderstanding.

thedailybeast.com
Recently Discovered ‘Vampire’ Could Have Been Saved by Invisalign
The remains of a woman believed to be a vampire were unearthed in a Polish cemetery. But it may all have been a misunderstanding.
7:59 PM · Sep 10, 2022

https://www.thedailybeast.com/recently-discovered-vampire-could-have-been-saved-by-invisalign

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Roughly three hundred years ago residents of the Polish village of Pien refused to take any risks. When they interred the remains of a wealthy woman in the local cemetery, they were concerned that she wouldn’t stay put. So, they did what any of us would do and installed a security system. First, they shackled her foot to the grave. Then, they put a sickle around her neck so that she would be decapitated if she attempted to rise from the grave. If it wasn’t clear already, the currently unidentified woman was suspected of being a vampire.

Archeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland unearthed the woman’s remains while excavating in the cemetery of the southern village. The woman’s burial, the scientists say, reflects the elaborate rituals associated with the treatment of potential vampires. These rituals were about disorienting or constraining the dead using symbolic and physical restraints.

Dariusz Poliński, a Copernicus professor and leader of the excavations, said that the practical physical strategies for protecting oneself “against the return of the dead [included] cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing them with a stone.” In the same way, said Poliński, “The sickle [placed around the neck] was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.” In other words, the graves were booby trapped. The padlock on the woman’s big toe, on the other hand, served a more symbolic function: it represented “the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning.”

As noted by Sarah Cascone, this is not the first discovery of its kind. In 2014 academics excavating and reporting on five sets of remains from Drewsko (roughly 130 miles from Pien) described finding sickles pressed to the throats of the deceased in order to prevent their nocturnal meanderings. In the case of these individuals, they appeared to be immigrants to the region. In the case of the Pien woman, the fragments of a silk cap in her tomb suggest that she was of high status. This can explain why it is that she was buried on holy ground rather than in a mass grave.

*snip*

[Bayard]

1. Fascinating

Thanks!

[maxrandb]

2. Bookmarking this for when Donnie Dipshit dies. NT