On several occasions, particularly on the periphery of the Habsburg Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries, dead people were suspected of being revenants or vampires, and consequently dug up and destroyed. Some contemporary authors named this phenomenon Magia Posthuma. This blog is dedicated to understanding what happened and why.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Yet another Czech 'vampire' found
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Javier Arries points out to me that there are in fact no less than two recent archaeological finds that may document beliefs in revenants. Apart from the find in Hradék nad Nisou, a more recent one was done in Modrá, known in German as Neudorf, located in Moravia in the South Eastern part of the Czech Republic. You can find more information on the history of Modrá here.
The news about this find is, unfortunately, not available in English, but here is the Czech news story dated May 4 2010: 'V Modré objevili archeologové hrob tzv. vampýra', an interview with the archaeologist Miroslav Vaškových, so here the word vampire, and not upir, is actually used. From what I can gather, the indications of revenant belief includes that the corpse was prevented by stones from exiting the tomb, and that the skull should have been crushed on purpose.
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