Fwd: [acb-chat] The dead will rise - archeological find

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From: "Demaya, Diego via acb-chat" <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2019 13:40:15 +0000
Subject: [acb-chat] The dead will rise - archeological find
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Cc: "Demaya, Diego" <Diego.Demaya@memorialhermann.org>


The dead will rise —
Fifth-century child's skeleton shows evidence of "vampire burial"
The "Vampire of Lugnano" had a rock in its mouth to keep it from
rising from grave.

Archaeologists have discovered the skeleton of a 10-year-old child at
an ancient Roman site in Italy with a rock carefully placed in its
mouth. This suggests those who buried the child—who probably died of
malaria during a deadly fifth century outbreak—feared it might rise
from the dead and spread the disease to those who survived. Locals are
calling it the "Vampire of Lugnano."

"This is a very unusual mortuary treatment that you see in various
forms in different cultures, especially in the Roman world," says
Jordan Wilson<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.eurekalert.org_pub-5Freleases_2018-2D10_uoa-2Dbr101118.php&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=MJlsPzXySDUfQylL8VyP48LebZzXtxC4eW-1DNlwOjM&s=S4rv8Wh395OtWTJQx3EpZhUNOr8wBUxQharlJvjkhZk&e=>,
a graduate student in bio-archaeology at the University of Arizona who
studied the remains. He added that this could "indicate a fear that
this person might come back from the dead and try to spread disease to
the living."

Pretty much every culture on Earth has some version of a vampire (or
proto-vampire) myth. Chinese folklore has the Jiang shi, [corrected]
which are reanimated corpses that rise from the grave to prey on the
living; one type has sharp fangs, the better to bite into the neck of
said prey. Russian, Albanian, Indian, and Greek folklore have similar
undead monsters. Russian villagers in the Middle Ages often drove
stakes into the bodies of suspected vampires upon burial to keep them
from rising again.

A team of archaeologists from the University of Arizona and Stanford
University made the discovery over the summer while excavating a site
known as La Necropoli dei Bambini ("Cemetery of the Babies"), since it
was believed to be exclusively for the burial of infants and toddlers
who died from an outbreak of malaria. (The archaeologists are now
rethinking that assumption.) Based on the open position of the child's
jaw, they concluded that the rock had been placed there intentionally,
since this would not have happened naturally as the body decomposed.
There were also teeth marks on the stone's surface.

The most-likely explanation is that the locals did this to ensure the
dead child stayed that way. Prior excavations amidst the human remains
in the Cemetery of the Babies unearthed various items commonly
associated with magic at the time: raven talons, toad bones, and
bronze cauldrons filled with ash. The oldest remains found previously
were those of a three-year-old girl whose hands and feet were weighed
down with stones.
"I've never seen anything like it. It's extremely eerie and weird."

"We know that the Romans would go to the extent of employing
witchcraft to keep the evil—whatever is contaminating the body—from
coming out," says<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.eurekalert.org_pub-5Freleases_2018-2D10_uoa-2Dbr101118.php&d=DwMFAg&c=cBOA5YEoZuz9KdLvh38YxdrPtfJt83ckXekfBgq5xB0&r=CK8oOj7-JYZnTDmB5orNTVZXar6NrsnGtGHfQ5m79Do&m=MJlsPzXySDUfQylL8VyP48LebZzXtxC4eW-1DNlwOjM&s=S4rv8Wh395OtWTJQx3EpZhUNOr8wBUxQharlJvjkhZk&e=>
University of Arizona archaeologist David Soren, who headed the
excavation. Nevertheless, this latest discovery is not a common
practice, and none of the other skulls unearthed from the site thus
far has had a stone in its mouth.

"I've never seen anything like it," says Soren. "It's extremely eerie
and weird." However, there have been similar burials in other
locations in Italy, such as the elderly 16th-century woman, unearthed
in 2009, who was buried with a brick in her mouth. She was dubbed the
"Vampire of Venice."

The team will return to the site next summer to wrap up its
excavation, perhaps uncovering more "vampire burials." At the very
least, the archaeologists will learn more about this particular
malaria outbreak and how the community responded to it almost 1,500
years ago. "Anytime you look at burials, they're significant because
they provide a window into ancient minds," says Wilson. "We have a
saying in bio-archaeology: 'The dead don't bury themselves.' We can
tell a lot about people's beliefs and hopes by the way they treat the
dead."


Schlumberger-Private