(Read “‘Vampire of Venice’ Unmasked: Plague Victim & Witch?”) The brick was likely a burial tactic to prevent strega-Italian vampires or witches-from leaving the grave to eat people. In 2006, archaeologists unearthed a 16th-century skull in Venice, Italy, that had been buried among plague victims with a brick in its mouth. Vampires of Europeīecause of this, vampire scares tended to coincide with outbreaks of the plague. Trying to kill vampires, or prevent them from feeding, was a way for people to feel as though they had some control over disease. “The one constant in the evolution of vampire legend has been its close association with disease,” writes Mark Collins Jenkins in his book Vampire Forensics. Before people understood how certain diseases spread, they sometimes imagined vampires were behind the unseen forces slowly ravaging their communities. (Read “Archaeologists Suspect Vampire Burial An Undead Primer.”)īloody corpses weren’t the only cause for suspicion. People unfamiliar with this process would interpret this fluid to be blood and suspect that the corpse had been drinking it from the living.
And as internal organs break down, a dark “purge fluid” can leak out of the nose and mouth.
A VAMPIRE DEATH DREAM MOVIE SKIN
As a corpse’s skin shrinks, its teeth and fingernails can appear to have grown longer. Often, these legends arose from a misunderstanding of how bodies decompose. These beliefs centered around the fear that the dead, once buried, could still harm the living. Scholars suspect that the modern conception of these Halloween monsters evolved from various traditional beliefs that were held throughout Europe. Some, like Dracula, are aristocrats who live in castles.īut vampires didn’t start out so clearly defined. They can be warded off with garlic, or killed with a stake through the heart. They have fangs, drink human blood, and can’t see themselves in mirrors. The traits of modern-day vampires are pretty well established.
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