![Burial rites of the superstitious, paranoid, and panicked. From Reuters:
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. […]
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,” said [Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist]. “It’s possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognized.”
For more blood-sucking fun, I recommend this essay on the enduring vampire myth.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/zkfIIODV5l573fp1Ccny7PMio1_500.jpg)
Burial rites of the superstitious, paranoid, and panicked. From Reuters:
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. […]
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,” said [Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist]. “It’s possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognized.”
For more blood-sucking fun, I recommend this essay on the enduring vampire myth.
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The Great American Cooking Project
Notes from others: