Source
ABC news wrote:
Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.
Its a tiny bit freaky, especially hearing the backstory about the gravediggers. Interesting find though, especially in light of the fact that Bram Stoker made Vampires famous in the 18th Century, when this skeleton was from the 16th Century.ABC news wrote:
Gravediggers reopening mass graves would sometimes come across bodies bloated by gas, with hair still growing, and blood seeping from their mouths and believe them to be still alive.
The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead were often decayed by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the corpse's teeth, and vampires became known as "shroud-eaters".
According to medieval medical and religious texts, the "undead" were believed to spread pestilence in order to suck the remaining life from corpses until they acquired the strength to return to the streets again.
"To kill the vampire you had to remove the shroud from its mouth, which was its food like the milk of a child, and put something uneatable in there," Mr Borrini said.
"It's possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognised."
