Revenant - from Italy

Since Emilio de' Rossignoli published his groundbreaking Io credo nei vampiri back in 1961, a number of books on revenants and vampires have been written in Italy, including Massimo Introvigne's La stirpe di Dracula (1997) and Tommaso Braccini's Prima di Dracula (2011). Recently, young Italian historian Simonluca Renda penned another book on the subject, Revenant: Il retorno dei vampiri, a slim volume (136 pages) published by Hermatena, that draws heavily on Introvigne and other writers.

Renda writes about 18th century vampires, the masticating dead, Greek vampires, the vampire tales recounted by William of Newburgh and Walter Map, related myths from antiquity, and - most notably, I suppose - archaeological finds that may (or may not) be related to beliefs in vampires and revenants. A brief appendix deals with the so-called Highgate Vampire, and a bibliography as well as a handful of maps are included.

As I do not really read Italian, I am, unfortunately, only able to get an idea of the contents based on names and references. Consequently, there may be finer points and details that are not apparent to me from scrutinizing the text based on my knowledge of the subject. No doubt this is a nice read for the Italian reader - considering, however, the brevity of the book, it looks to me as if, at best, it mainly summarizes information and views that are available elsewhere, in particular in the books that Renda himself refers to.

Revenant is available from the publisher at € 15.50 from the publisher.

'Vampire' burials that can change a research life

Anthropology PhD student and blogger, Katy Meyers, recently wrote of a symposium on The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange: Human Deviant Burials and their Cultural Contexts arranged by the Canadian Association of Physical Anthropologists:

'[Sandra] Garvie-Lok discussed the finding of a potential ‘vampire’ burial in Byzantine and Ottoman Greece. This was interesting because she examined first the ethnographic and historical evidence for the belief in vampires and the behavior towards them. Next, she used this information to interpret a burial from Ottoman-era Mytilene that due to the presence of stakes through the skeleton may indicate that people believed the deceased individual was a ‘vampire’. [Lauren] Hosek discussed a similar topic, the fear of revenants- individuals who rise from the dead. She discussed historic legends of revenants and archaeological evidence from two fortified settlement sites in what is now the Czech Republic. Several of these graves are consistent with the descriptions of potential revenants.'

Sandra Garvie-Lok, an anthropologist from the University of Alberta, according to that university's web site was aided in her career by a 'vampire': 'It really did change my research life.'

'Garvie-Lok, an osteologist, was set to study North American sites until a fateful opportunity took her to the island of Lesbos in Greece, where she found herself with the skeleton of an alleged vampire from the Ottoman Empire. She became embroiled in ethnocultural history and vampire lore that would play a small part in her focusing on Greece and ancient civilizations. She says the vampire tales from that region and the pop-culture iterations of the undead bear little resemblance, especially when it comes to disposing of a vampire. And as for her own adventure as a vampire hunter, she says it’s an experience she’ll never forget.'

'She says the regional accounts of vampires are consistent from Greece all the way through to the Slavic states, and none of the stories had anything to do with bats, biting or blood loss. Instead, she says, the vampire was believed to be a demon-animated corpse who would chase and physically attack the living—much closer to current popular culture images of zombies. And unlike the Dracula lore, it was the vampire’s look—or even his breath—that could be deadly. Vampires were often blamed for weird noises and unexplained phenomena that would occur in towns.'

News story from the University of Alberta

Garvie-Lok has also told her story in the Huffington Post.

'Vampire skeletons' in Poland

See Dziennik zachodni for more photos

While constructing a ring road in Gliwice in South West Poland, formerly part of Silesia, four skeletons were found with their heads cut off and e.g. placed between the skeleton's legs. Archaeologist Dr. Jacek Pierzak says that it is hard to date the skeletons, but they are believed to come from the early modern period. Tests will date them and may provide a better understanding of whether they were e.g. victims of a cholera epidemic, executed criminals, or indeed people who the locals wished to prevent from becoming revenants.

The latter theory has made some Polish web sites write about incidents of vampirism in the areas that are now part of Poland, and, of course, Silesia was one of the areas where beliefs in magia posthuma was not uncommon in the early modern period. The press mentions a more recent example from the village Stare Mierzwice  Masovia, about 100 km to the East of Warsaw, where in 1914 a corpse was dug up, beheaded, and the head placed between the legs.

Thanks to Leon Aguilera Radford for notifying me of this news story.

Symbolic trepanation

Source: Bolgari

According to Professor of anthropology, Yordan Yordanov, who has studied and reconstructed the head of the ‘vampire skeleton’ from Sozopol, the head is not only unusually asymmetrical, but it also shows traces of so-called incomplete or symbolic trepanation (or trephination).

Trepanations can be divided into three classes: 1) Those performed on living subjects as a therapeutic method. 2) Those performed on a corpse for "magic" properties. 3) Incomplete trepanations that are performed on living subjects without fully removing a piece of the skull, perhaps only scraping off portions of the skull. The last ones are those signified as symbolic trepanations and are supposed to be performed for cultical reasons.

Several examples of this kind of trepanation are known from Hungary (according to Berecki, Molnár, Marcsik, Pálfi: Rare Types of Trephinations from Hungary Shed New Light on Possible Cross-cultural Connections in the Carpathian Basin in International Journal of Osteantrohopology, it was fairly common there in the 9th to the 11th century, cf. also this blog).

The term symbolic trepanation was introduced by the Hungarian L. Bartucz in 1950, and Yordanov himself has studied the phenomenon on finds from the West coast of the Black Sea (Jordanov, Dimitrova, and Nikolov:  Symbolic Trepanations of Skulls from the Middle Ages (IXth - Xth Century) in Bulgaria in Acta Neurochirurgica Vol 92 (1988), issue 1-4, pp. 15-18).

The 'Vampire' Returns

From Cross Online Bulgarian Network

After being displayed at the National History Museum in Sofia, the purported Bulgarian 'vampire skeleton' has been returned to Sozopol on the Black Sea coast, where it was originally found. A reconstruction of the head of the deceased man from the 14th century has been carried out by Professor Yordan Yordanov, and was presented to the public in late May. Apparently a man of about 45 years of age, he is described as 'handsome as a Roman'. He certainly does not look particularly scary...

Having arrived safely in Sozopol, both the skeleton and the reconstructed head are exhibited at the Archaeological Museum in Sozopol, where they are expected to become a tourist attriction. In the words of Bozhidar Dimitrov: 'They are pretty disappointed in Sozopol that [the skeleton] is not with them. He’s been lying about long enough, it is time he goes and makes some money at the seaside.'

Cf. older posts like Archaeology as romanticism and ideology and Vampire skeletons, a Bulgarian Indiana Jones and the remains of John the Baptist. A video from the Sozopol exhibition can be found at Zona Burgas.

Professor Yordan Yordanov and his reconstruction (from Novinar)

A Bulgarian novel about the Sozopol 'vampire'  by Galina Zlatareva,  A drop of blood for the vampire

Pirates and vampires

Source: The Sofia Globe

The 'vampire skeleton' found in Sozopol in Bulgaria belonged to a man named Krivich, a name meaning the Crooked, according to novinite:

'He was a legendary pirate, manager of the Sozopol fortress or one of his heirs.

The Crooked, as his contemporaries called him, has been a crippled, but extremely intelligent man. He outshined everyone with his knowledge about the sea, the stars and herbs. Byzantine chronicles describe how he plundered a Venetian ship. It is possible that he was declared a master of the witchcraft because of these talents, which explains the metal stake through his heart.

Experts also believe that the man may have been an intellectual and perhaps a medic, as such individuals often raised suspicions in the Middle Ages. The grave was discovered near the apse of a church, which suggests that he was an aristocrat.'

National Geographic has produced a documentary about the skeleton, featuring Bozhidar Dimitrov, director of the Bulgarian National Museum of History. Dimitrov has recently supported news of the discovery of the skeleton of a gambler in Sozopol. In this connection The Sofia Globe writes:

'Sozopol is one of Bulgaria’s oldest towns, the current settlement dating back to the seventh century BCE when it was founded as a Greek colony named Antheia (the town’s name would later change to Apollonia and then Sozopolois), but it appears that the site was inhabited as far back as the second millennium BCE, which makes it a rich digging ground for archaeologists every summer.

It does not hurt that one of the town’s more famous sons, the head of the National History Museum in Sofia, Bozhidar Dimitrov, rarely misses an opportunity to promote Sozopol – as he did with the “vampire” find, which grabbed international media attention and resulted in a documentary by the National Geographic channel.

Dimitrov is not averse to making bombastic pronouncements on the value of new finds – in 2010, he proudly proclaimed the contents of a relic urn found on a small island off the coast of Sozopol to contain the bones of St John the Baptist, even before the remains could be dated.

Dimitrov, who is a former diver and whose historian credentials are based mainly on his research of the medieval Boyana church near Sofia, has in recent years seized every opportunity to big up his hometown, nor is he afraid of stepping on anyone’s toes – earlier this summer, he proudly proclaimed Vlad the Impaler, the Wallachian prince who served as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, as having been Bulgarian.

Following the “vampire” find earlier this summer, Sozopol plans to twin with Sighisoara, the Transylvanian town where Vlad spent his exile between his first two reigns.'

Earlier this Summer, The Sofia Globe noted that 'the Sozopol souvenir shops urgently are placing orders for Dracula souvenirs, as it turns out that the Sozopol “vampire” and the notorious Romanian count have been relatives. According to the news.bg website, several advertising agencies in Bourgas have received orders for vampire souvenirs.'

No doubt, pirates and vampires make for an excellent tourist attraction.

Archaeology as romanticism and ideology

When I initially read about the uncovering and quick exhibition of the ’vampire skeleton’ in Bulgaria, I was reminded of some of the bog body finds here in Denmark. Public interest in seeing the so-called ‘Grauballe Man’ was so extensive, that the authorities decided to put him on display quickly, and the 19th century ‘Haraldskær Woman’ was romantically identified with Queen Gunhild who according to the Jomsvikinga Saga was drowned in a bog by order of King Harald Bluetooth.

Today we are instead used to archaeologists spending a very long time preserving and studying their finds before they are described in papers and exhibited. And we are, I think, generally suspicious of interpretations that smack too much of romanticism or ideology. Archaeological finds have all too frequently been exploited for political purposes, or ideology and politics have served as a motivational factor intrinsic to the discipline, pre-determining interpretational possibilities and distinguishing between the relevant and the irrelevant.

The relationship between politics and archaeology is the focus of an anthology published by Routledge in 1998: Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, politics and heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East edited by Lynn Meskell. Chapter 4 is of particular interest here as it concerns Bulgarian Archaeology: ideology, sociopolitics and the exotic. It is written by Douglass W. Bailey, an expert on the later prehistory of South Eastern Europe, author of Balkan Prehistory: Exclusion, Incorporation and Identity (2000) and Professor at San Francisco State University, cf. the video at the end of this post.

Based on his own work in Bulgaria as well as discussions with Bulgarian archaeologists, Bailey not only analyses Bulgarian archaeology and the Western attitude towards it, but suggests ways in which to develop it. Following Todorova’s well-known 1997 book Imagining the Balkans, Bailey notes that not only do Westerners consider Bulgaria and its archaeology exotic, ‘the history of modern Bulgaria is one of auto-exoticism’:

‘Bulgarian auto-exoticism has entailed efforts to create a modern nation-state by illuminating its distance (ethnic, historical, linguistic) from other states as well as to eliminate any internal alternative pockets of cultural or ethnic exoticism (thus the internal campaigns of forced resettlement and name-changing of 'non--Bulgarian' Bulgarians).’

Here I cannot help thinking of the Dracula tourism promoted by Romania which certainly exploits an exotic interest in the country to attract tourists, while at the same time it creates an identity, exemplified by the Crama Dracula restaurant that I recently visited in Barcelona. One should, however, also recall that Vlad Tepes was employed as a national hero by Nicolae Ceauşescu, a historic figure whose personality and deeds was not something distant, but part of a glorious past that was important to consider in modern day Romania. So, obviously the auto-exoticism that Bailey describes is much more than a scheme to attract tourists who cater for the exotic:

'From the West, the discipline [of Bulgarian archaeology] appears to exist solely to glorify the ethos of a magnificent past through a fascination with the art and culture of extinct peoples. From this perspective it is confirmed as a discipline born in the spirit (and the period) of modernism: it seeks to study the primitive in its past and it relegates matters of causal explanation to the epiphenomena of descriptive ideas of cultural progress.

Thus, Bulgarian archaeology itself considers its object of study (i.e. the past) as exotic. In this sense, the more mundane elements of the material record hold little interest: common practice on excavations is to discard coarse-ware pottery without concern or quantification. The emphasis of research remains firmly centred on the most sensational and emotive sectors of the archaeological record (i.e. burials, figurines, metal-work, fortresses and fine-ware pottery). Most surprisingly, perhaps, the tradition of Bulgarian archaeology-as-romanticism has remained in place through the post-1989 period of the region-wide opening of intellectual borders, research resources and collaborative strategies.’

But this archaeology-as-romanticism is not imposed by some extraneous political or ideological factor; it is intrinsic to the discipline, but also to the structure of the academic sciences and the political institutions of Bulgarian society. To Bailey Bulgarian archaeology essentially is itself an ideology.

‘Following M. Todorova, I suggest that Bulgarian archaeology itself is an active socio-politics and ideology: it is not a passive tool of socio-political, nationalist, totalitarian, or other state--level political structures. Bulgarian archaeology's long-established position as a socio-political ideology is one of the conditions which makes it appear exotic to Western eyes.’

This active ideology, however, does not confine itself to (re)creating national histories and ethnic identities, it has a powerful role in a society in which the past arbitrates the present:

‘As an historical subject and thus as active socio-political ideology, Bulgarian archaeology occupies an unrivalled position as justifier and legitimator. In this sense, the past is an arbiter of the present and those who can read the past are arbiters of justice and, as such, possess considerable power. The ideology of the past as arbitration is not limited to the recreation of national histories and prehistories: it drives a social logic through the reality of all elements of daily life. A particularly strong recent manifestation of this logic was the enthusiastic (and in most cases successful) drive by Bulgarian families, in the early 1990s, to reclaim property confiscated by the communists during their forty-five years in power. Property reclamation rested on the simple principle that proof of ownership in the past justified the right to regain ownership in the present. The past arbitrates the present.’

But, if Bulgarian archaeology is in fact an ideology, then its professional practitioners must themselves be considered ideologues:

‘The case that Bulgarian archaeologists are ideologues rests on several important facts. The first is a long-standing link between politicians and members of the scientific and cultural intelligentsia. The second link connects two separate roles which Bulgarian archaeologists play: on the one hand they are scientific field-workers; on the other they are custodians and, as mentioned above, arbiters of the nation's past. These links raise (and suggest answers to) important questions about the power of archaeological data and its interpretation. In turn they raise a debate surrounding the personnel of Bulgarian archaeology, most particularly the question of who is allowed (as opposed to who is qualified) to study the past. Furthermore, it is through an examination of the practitioners of archaeology that one comes to understand the unchanging condition of archaeological interpretation in Bulgaria. Such an understanding is especially enlightening in the absence of either processual or post-modern developments in Bulgarian archaeologies.’

Bailey traces the linkage between science and politics back in time to the creation of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN) a century ago in July 1912 as a centralised organisation based on a law formalising the connection between BAN and the government. This centralisation was further reinforced during the Communist era, and today it is still a member institution of BAN that grants permission to carry out field work in Bulgaria. The close link between the government and academia and intelligentsia is reflected in the number of academics and intellectuals who have and still do occupy important political offices, like e.g. the Director of the Bulgarian National Museum of History, Bozhidar Dimitrov.

Bailey however rejects any naïve and condescending depreciation of Bulgarian archaeology as ‘a retarded stage of development in the evolution of archaeological theory,’ as it does not only assume a Western righteousness of method, but also a lack of appreciation and understanding of the background of the contemporary Bulgarian discipline. Whereas the quest of a processual approach to archaeology (aka new archaeology) is for an objectivity separate from politics, the Bulgarian approach to archaeology can by definition not be separated from politics. So explanations do not ideally follow strictly from the given data, but are pre-determined by a centralised ideology: ‘often archaeological research entails little more than recovering more and more data which can be assigned to pre-determined chronological and social stages.’

Bailey discusses ways to ‘de-exoticise’ Bulgarian archaeology, and suggests that Western archaeologists ‘treat colleagues as peers and offer them the respect of critical comment on their work, their methods and the social consequences of their doctrines. To do otherwise is to abrogate any responsibility for the impact which archaeology has on the reality of modern existence in Bulgaria or in any place that archaeology is practised. The time to accept that responsibility is now when, as a discipline, Bulgarian archaeology drifts without proper financial ballast, having been orphaned from a long-exploitative family.’

Now this is, of course, Bailey's analysis, but from what I can gather from reviews and the information I have seen concerning his work, I have found it relevant to write about it here. It supports the notion that Bulgarian archaeology has a tendency to favour more sensational finds, possibly from an intrinsic reasons, but at the same time aiming at attracting not only attention from a wider audience, but also more funding, either directly from the government or indirectly from tourists who are perhaps not interested in the Bulgarian history in general, but who are willing to spend money to see a 'vampire skeleton' or to go on pilgrimage to the site of the (supposed) human remains of John the Baptist.

As for the skeletons themselves, the news stories about the 'vampire skeletons' have not only been imprecise, but have presented us with very little concrete information. For that reason I have so far mainly quoted the news stories instead of trying to discuss something that I feel I have only a vague idea about. But it is obvious that a) Bulgaria has now firmly placed itself as an area of 'vampire interest', and b) the archaeological finds are now to the public part of 'vampire lore'. Whatever that precisely is, but I suppose that films, novels and roleplaying games will be inspired by the Sozopol skeletons. At least, it probably has a little more to do with revenants and vampires than the most recent vampire blockbuster, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Apropos of Bulgarian archaeology

After the find of the so-called 'vampire skeletons' in Sozopol in Bulgaria, someone posted the montage below of another Bulgarian archaeological find 'endorsed' by Bozhidar Dimitrov. According to 24 часа, Dimitrov appreciates the witty comment on his current involvement in the news stories on vampires.

And by the way, in 2011 a bay in Antarctica was named after Dimitrov.

'Vampire skeletons', a Bulgarian Indiana Jones and the remains of John the Baptist

More than a month has now gone by since the hype about the Bulgarian 'vampire skeletons' spread across the globe. Since then, the Bulgarian Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, has stated that the Bulgarian government is planning to slate additional funding for archeological excavations on the southern Black Sea coast, and one of the skeletons from Sozopol is now in Sofia, and as far as I have understood on display at the National Museum of History.


Vampire skeleton on display in Bulgaria by Zoomin_Canada

Another 'vampire skeleton', found in Veliko Tarnovo, was ritually reburied by the archaeologists who found it led by Professors Nikolay Ovcharov and Hitko Vachev. This skeleton of a medieval man had been buried with his hands and feet tied, and with pieces of ember inside his grave.

Ovcharov, who according to novinite is nicknamed 'the Bulgarian Indiana Jones', reburied the skeleton according to an 'ethnographic ritual in which the "vampire's" bones were cleansed with wine and water, and were placed together in a new grave close to the old one together with the lighting of candles in the Bulgarian Orthodox Christian tradition,' cf. the photo below.

As pointed out by 'bshistorian' in a couple of comments to an earlier post, there are several things that are hard to understand from just reading the news stories and looking at the photos and videos of the corpse. So to what extent the find is actually related to revenant or vampire beliefs seems hard to say.


Bulgaria Looks to Suck the Vampire Legend Out of... by NewsLook

Some of the archaeologists involved are certainly characters. What are we to think of archaeologists led by a 'Bulgarian Indiana Jones' who perform 'ethnographic rituals' on a medieval skeleton, and what about the director of the National Museum of History, Bozhidar Dimitrov? According to Wikipedia, he is also a prominent politican and former Minister without portfolio. As a historian he has written polemically on the ancestry of the Bulgarians and 'macedonism'. Incidentally, he was born in Sozopol where the 'vampire skeleton' now in display in Sofia was found.

Generally, the Bulgarians appear to have a fondness for sensationalistic claims with regards to some of their archaeological discoveries, as is evident from the news story below on the possible finds of the remains of John the Baptist in Bulgaria. Curiously, the discovery was made near Sozopol, and like the 'vampire skeletons' attracted a lot of attention. The remains have been transferred to the Orthodox Church where they lay in state in the St. George Church in Sozopol. Because the theory is not refuted, obviously there are many people who hold on to it for various reasons. Obviously, some Bulgarian archaeologists and politicians hope to attract tourists who are intrigued to see 'vampire skeletons'.

When the discovery of 'John the Baptist' was made, the same Finance Minister who has now stated that more funds will be set aside for archaeological excavations on the Black Sea coast, Simeon Djankov, plainly said: 'As soon as this amazing archaeological discovery was made, I made some research, and found that such finds generate great returns from tourism and pilgrimage. Bulgaria and this region will now enter the world tourism maps as a pilgrimage site. The fact that this is a sea resort provides for an unique combination between cultural and sea tourism.'

'Scientists Say Bulgarian St John Baptist Theory Possible

Scientists do not exclude the possibility that remains found in an ancient reliquary in a 5th century monastery on Sveti Ivan Island in Bulgaria may belong to St John the Baptist.

On Thursday, a team of Oxford University archaeologists announced they have provided scientific evidence to support the extraordinary claim.

The findings are to be presented in a documentary to be aired on The National Geographic channel in Britain on Sunday, The Telegraph informs.

The research team dated the right-handed knuckle bone to the first century AD, when John is believed to have lived until his beheading ordered by king Herod.

Scientists from the University of Copenhagen analysed the DNA of the bones, finding they came from a single individual, probably a man, from a family in the modern-day Middle East, where John would have lived.

The findings do not prove anything, but they also do not refute the theory initially presented by Bulgarian archaeologists that the remains in question may indeed belong to St John the Baptist.

The remains were uncovered on July 28, 2010, during excavations of the floor of the medieval monastery on Saint Ivan island, near Bulgaria's historical, coastal town of Sozopol. They were placed in a sealed reliquary buried next to a tiny urn inscribed with St. John's name and his birth date.

The Bulgarian government decided to benefit from the discovery to boost tourism, going as far as to say that Sozopol will help deal with the economic crisis by becoming the new Jerusalem on the Balkans, attracting believers from all over the world.'

When it rains, it pours

Today novitel reports that another 'vampire skeleton' has been found, this time in central Bulgaria. I suppose it's safe to say that by now every self respecting Bulgarian archaeologist seems to be jumping the vampire band wagon. To what extent we can really talk about vampires or other kinds of revenants is pretty difficult to say, cf. also bshistorian's recent comments, but so far I have decided to just mention the news as they are reported from Bulgaria:

New centuries-old skeleton of a man who has been buried with a rite to prevent him from becoming a vampire has been found in central Bulgaria.

The skeleton is nailed to the ground with four metal brackets and burning coals were placed over the tomb, according to a report of the largest private TV channel bTV.

The skeleton is of a man about 30 years of age, and it is yet to be dated, but Bulgaria's top archeologist, Nikolay Ovcharov, is quoted saying it is several centuries-old.

Ovcharov explains that the man has not been a vampire, but was buried with a pagan rite to prevent him from turning into one after the death.

The skeleton was found during archeological digs in a monastery near the central city of Veliko Tarnovo, where 10 years ago Ovcharov's team came upon a very similar find.

Videos from Sozopol

Footage from Sozopol via Zona Burgas, where you can also see a video about Ukrainian journalists visiting the site. More footage in an interview with Bozhidar Dimitrov on Bulgarian National Television.

A Bulgarian 'vampire skeleton' close up

From the Bulgarian Standart web site.

Cf. the news from the National Museum of History, Sofia.

Another twist on Vampire Tourism

Vampire tourism is a term that I have used several times over the years on this blog, so it is curious to find it in the news: 'Vampire' tourism in Bulgaria? reports that 'the considerable interest from abroad (in the Bulgarian 'vampire' skeletons discovered in Sozopol) can prove to be a perfect opportunity for popularizing Bulgaria's traditional folklore and its bizarre creatures and tales around the world.

Who knows, maybe a movie based on Bulgarian folklore can pour some fresh blood into the repetitive vampire film industry (pun not intended)?

Bulgarian tour operators have been quoted saying that the interest has been huge and Germans, Brits and Russians have already inquired about "vampire vacations" in Sozopol.

I do not want to discourage potential tourists, but travelling all the way to Bulgaria to see a skeleton pierced with an iron rod feels like a lame idea.

Firstly, Bulgaria has much more fascinating stuff to offer as a tourist destination, and secondly, vampires are truly great, but they belong to fiction. Looking at perfectly normal skeletons placed in a museum is not the point.'

Another news story, Vampire Hype to Boost Bulgaria's Tourism, provides some more insights to the archaeological find in Sozopol - and there is even a Venetian connection:

'People on three continents are excited about Bulgarian vampires in the wake of local archeologists claiming to have found a vampire skeleton in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.

The skeleton was the one of a buried man with an iron stick in his chest. He was buried over 700 years ago and was stabbed multiple times in the chest and the stomach, as his contemporaries feared that he would raise from the dead as a vampire, National History Museum Director, Bozhidar Dimitrov, told local media.

The Bulgarian Standard daily, which published a series of articles on the discovery, reports Thursday that media in the US, Europe and Asia have all broken the news in the press and in online editions.

The story found its place in two articles of the most-read tabloid in the world – The Daily Mail, in the Washington Post, BBC, and a number of Russian media.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian tour operators are quoted saying that the interest has been huge and Germans and Brits have already inquired about "vampire vacations" in Sozopol. There is an expected increase of visits from the US and Russia as well, while long lines are reported at the excavation site near the Saint Nicholas Wonderworker monastery.

Speaking for Standard, Bozhidar Dimitrov explained that the vampire's name was Krivich (The Crooked) and he was a legendary pirate, manager of the Sozopol fortress or one of his heirs.

The Crooked, as his contemporaries called him, has been a crippled, but extremely intelligent man. He outshined everyone with his knowledge about the sea, the stars and herbs. Byzantine chronicles describe how he plundered a Venetian ship. It is possible that he was declared a master of the witchcraft because of these talents, which explains the metal stake through his heart.

Experts also believe that the man may have been an intellectual and perhaps a medic, as such individuals often raised suspicions in the Middle Ages. The grave was discovered near the apse of a church, which suggests that he was an aristocrat.

According to archaeologists, this is the first time a "vampire" burial has been discovered in Sozopol.

Over 100 buried people whose corpses were stabbed to prevent them from becoming vampires have been discovered across Bulgaria over the years, according to Dimitrov.'

According to Focus, the skeletons will be on display at the National Museum of History in Sofia:

'The vampire burial unearthed in the seaside city of Sozopol will be displayed in the National Museum of History in Sofia due to the keen interest in Bulgaria and abroad, museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov told FOCUS News Agency.

The vampire will be displayed in about ten days when the special glass case in which it will be laid is ready.

On Tuesday AFP reported that archaeologists in Bulgaria unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with iron rods to keep them from turning into vampires.

According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried.

"These two skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century," national history museum chief Bozhidar Dimitrov said after the recent find in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.

People believed the rod would also pin the dead into their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorizing the living, the historian explained.

The practice was common, Dimitrov added, saying some 100 similar burials had already been found in Bulgaria.

Archaeologist Petar Balabanov, who in 2004 unearthed six nailed-down skeletons at a site near the eastern town of Debelt, said the pagan rite was also practiced in neighboring Serbia and other Balkan countries.'

Go here to read various posts about 'vampire tourism'.

The darker sides of Venetian history

The brilliant German magazine Der Spiegel Geschichte has just published an issue that explores various aspects of the history of Venice. Of particular relevance to the subject of this blog is a four page article about the plague that ravaged the city several times, Die ganze Stadt ein Grab. The supposed 'vampire' with a brick in its mouth found in the Lazaretto Nuovo is also depicted, and the theory is recounted.

Another dark side of Venetian history is explored in an article on the gruesome executions that were carried out in the city. The list of contents can be found on Der Spiegel's web site.

A sudden burst of interest in 'vampire skeletons'

A news story about 'vampire skeletons' found in Bulgaria providing very little actual information, and suddenly - as the story circulated around the globe - the number of visits to this blog exploded. Apparently a lot of people were searching for information on those 'vampire skeletons' and found some of my posts on the subject, like Another 'vampire' skeleton found, Yet another Czech 'vampire' found, 'Vampire Skeletons', Revenants and vampire forensics and The Vampire Bites Back? interesting.

Over 100 'Vampire' Graves Discovered

'Over 100 'Vampire' Graves Discovered in Bulgaria,' reports the Sofia news agency novinite after an interview with Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of the Bulgarian National History Museum, on the occasion of the archaeological find of two 'vampires' in the Black Sea town of Sozopol. Iron sticks had apparently been stabbed into the two bodies.

Dimitrov says, 'I do not know why an ordinary discovery like that became so popular. Perhaps because of the mysteriousness of the word "vampire." These people were believed to be evil while they were alive, and it was believed that they would become vampires once they are dead, continuing to torment people. (---) The curious thing is that there are no women among them. They were not afraid of witches.'

According to Wikipedia, 'Sozopol (Bulgarian: Созопол) is an ancient seaside town located 35 km south of Burgas on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. Today it is one of the major seaside resorts in the country, known for the Apollonia art and film festival (which takes place in early September) that is named after one of the town's ancient names.'

Lively Debate over 'Vampire' Skeleton

'We all know about archaeological finds that get sensationalized and distorted by the media. What kind of obligation do archaeologists have to try to correct such stories? Should we ignore them? Perhaps they are not important in the larger scheme of scholarship. Perhaps we think that trying to correct them would be futile. Or should we try to correct the record? I occasionally try to address media errors when its a topic I know well and can speak with authority, although my success rate (with letters to the editor, etc.) has not been very high.'

So wrote archaeologist Michael E. Smith on his blog, Publishing Archaeology, in 2009 when he published an e-mail from bioarchaeologist Anastasia Tsaliki expressing a sceptical attitude towards the 'vampire' find in Venice. Tsaliki herself is author of Vampires Beyond Legend: A Bioarchaeological Approach. In M. La Verghetta and L. Capasso (eds.), Proceedings of the XIII European Meeting of the Paleopathology Association, Chieti, Italy, 18-23 Sept. 2000, Edigrafital S.p.A: Teramo- Italy, 295-300.

I have myself expressed some concern, cf. also this post, about the popular presentation of the archaeological find of a 'vampire' by Borrini and his colleagues, but have so far not written about their original paper on the subject, Forensic Approach to an Archaeological Casework of "Vampire" Skeletal Remains in Venice: Odontological and Anthropological Prospectus by Emilio Nuzzolese and Matteo Borrini, published in November 2010 in The Journal of Forensic Sciences (Vol. 55, No. 6, p. 1634-7). In it the deceased individual in question, i.e. the old woman, is referred to as 'ID 6'. The authors find that 'the insertion of the brick into the dead woman's mouth must be considered intentional,' and that 'this practice probably had a symbolic and ritual value, that the sextons working in the graveyard during the plague handled the corpse this way, despite the danger of infection.'

In conclusion, Nuzzolese and Borrini: 'assume that during the digging of a hole in the ground for a person who had just died of the plague, the gravediggers cut off the ID 6 deposition. They noticed the shroud (its presence is suggested by the verticalization of the clavicle) and a hole, which corresponded with the mouth. As the body appeared as quite intact, they probably recognized in that body the so-called vampire, responsible for plague by chewing her shroud. As a consequence, they inserted a brick in her mouth. The sequence of those events (time since death) can be deduced by the lack of alteration on the skeleton joints, so that we can suppose that the gravediggers dealt with the corpse when it was not disjointed yet. The insertion of the brick into the mouth at the time of the primary deposition can be ruled out because we have no reference, even folkloric, for such a practice in that historical and cultural context.

It is not strange that superstitions concerning vampires were widespread in the 16th to 17th centuries even in a "cosmopolitan" and evolved city like Venice. It is surprising, however, that this exorcism ritual has been clearly recognized in an archaeological context: the ID 6 grave could well be the first "vampire" burial archaeologically attested and studied by a forensic odontological and anthropological approach.'

From Minozzi, Fornaciari and Fornaciari (J Forensic Sci, May 2012, Vol. 57, No. 3, p. 843-4)

This May, however, a commentary was published by The Journal of Forensic Sciences with an answer by Nuzzolose and Borrini (Vol. 57, No. 3, p. 843-8). The authors of the commentary, Simona Minozzi, Antonio Fornaciari and Gino Fornaciari from the Universities in Pisa and Siena, have responded because 'in Italy the story of the "Vampire of Venice" is receiving extraordinary emphasis in the mass media', while it is still only supported by the one article by Nuzzolese and Borrini, and in the opinion of Minozzi and co., 'the argumentation presented in this paper suffers from many drawbacks and seems to lack adequate scientific evidence, not only in the conclusions, but also in its initial assumptions.'

Minozzi and co. discuss the photographs available to them, which in their opinion support the theory that the woman was interred in a coffin. They also find that the assumption that there was a shroud is based on 'weak evidence', and stress that the Nachzehrer belief 'is not attested in Italy during the Modern Age, but appears to be tightly confined to the East German world.' Furthermore, they point to other examples of skeletons found with stones or other objects in their mouth, that bear no relation to e.g. revenant beliefs:

'During archaeological excavations of medieval and postmedieval cemeteries, the opened jaw with preserved connection of the themporo-mandibular joints is frequently observed as an effect of decomposition in empty space. This condition can be followed by a secondary oral cavity filling, even with stones or bricks, if these are present in the surrounding sediment. We report an example from the medieval cemetery of Vecchiano, Pisa. Therefore the same event might have occurred in the Nuovo Lazzaretto burials; to support our more simple theory, we show an "eater of bones", a skeleton found in the cemetery of Vecchio Lazzaretto in Venice with a similar archaeological context.' (see the figure above)

Consequently, they find that the intentionality of of the action of a 'Vampire Slayer' inserting a brick into the woman's mouth is insufficiently documented, and 'therefore, we cannot draw any conclusions about the intentionality of the action, even less about the symbolic burial ritual.'

In their response, Nuzzolese and Borrini present more information on the find and their theory. They note that 'the intentional deposition of the brick in the mouth is strictly linked with the contextual analysis'. Analysing the position of various skeletons intercepting the ID 6 remains, that at the time of the deposition of one of the other corpses (ID 1), 'the body of ID6 was uncovered during its decomposition: the gravediggers encountered that cadaverous phenomena which was interpreted, at the time, as evidence of vampirism.' If the woman was not skeletonized, Nuzzolese and Borrini find it possible to 'hypothesize the presence of a shroud because of the verticalization of the left clavicle associated with medial rotation of humeri. It is certainly true that this phenomenon might be attributable to a wall effect originated from possible barriers in the ground (not present in this case) or a coffin, but no evidence of wooden containers for ID6 or any other skeletons in the site were attested during the excavation.' They also note that they have found pins to hold the bandages and shrouds on other individuals at the site, and go on to comment:

'The shroud question seemed to tax the Italian colleagues, to the point that they finished the sentence about the hypothesis shroud mastication with an exclamation mark. It is possible that because of the brevity of the case report the authors have not clearly emphasized the nature of those cliams: it is a reconstructive hypothesis based on ancient stories related to the "mastication" by the dead, or the fact that some of them were found apparently with chewed clothes or shrouds. This sort of postmortem bulimia (as already mentioned and published originated from the difference between the timing of fabric and body decomposition) was at the basis of the belief of a particular species of vampire, the nachzehrer.

Therefore, the authors found no evidence of a hole in the shroud but assumed the presence of the cloth and the intentional inclusion of a brick for the reasons already explained, they reconstructed, according to ancient tales, the possible scene of the accidental exhumation. During this operation, because of the lack of understanding the process of decomposition, the gravediggers thought they had come face to face with a vampire and then decided to exorcise it to stop the plague that raged in the city.'

Nuzzolese and Borrini then discuss the brick, noting that 'The deep introduction in the oral cavity and the relationship with the jaw bones preclude that the brick was simply loose in the soil after a "secondary infiltration of the sediment" (differently from what we see in Fig. 3 of our Italian colleagues' article), and also the preservation of anatomical joints (which is not present in the "eater of bones" from Lazzaretto Vecchio) "suggests the intentionality of the action" and can exclude that "the brick was accidentally put into the mouth".'

Finally, Nuzzolese and Borrini comment on the plausibility that the Nachzehrer belief travelled from one part of Europe to another: 'As it is known, when goods move, men, ideas, and cultures travel with them.' They take Philip Rohr's words on putting a small stone into the deceased's mouth as evidence 'that the practice to put something inedible in the nachzehrer mouth was attested and diffused: if no other archeological evidence of this ritual has been discovered (or recognized), this does not mean that the author's hypothesis is invalid.'

In conclusion, they quote from Tommaso Braccini's book Prima di Dracula: Archeologia del vampiro (2011): 'compared with many other more uncertain and hypothetical cases, that of the vampire of Venice (a vampire, in fact, only in the broadest sense of the word) is particularly striking and also supported by a rather solid base documentary.'

14th century illustration of gravediggers burying plague victims, according to Meurer: Vampire: Die Engel der Finsternis (2003)

So what are we to think without going into a discussion of details that no doubt require specialized knowledge to pass a verdict on? Nuzzolese and Borrini clearly maintain that their hypothesis is valid: The brick was intentionally stuck into the mouth of the dead person when the gravediggers chanced upon seeing the corpse while burying another deceased individual. The act of putting the brick into a corpse's mouth in their opinion must be understood in terms of the belief in the masticating dead, a belief that is not documented in Italy, but hypothetically may have been known by gravediggers at the Lazaretto Nuovo near Venice. And a belief that was frequently connected to the plague, a circumstance that may have contributed to the use of an otherwise unusual type of apotropaics in the area during an epidemic.

Assuming that Nuzzolese and Borrini are correct, their hypothesis poses intriguing questions concerning the possible migration of 'necrophobic' beliefs and customs, consequently contributing to the fundamental discussion regarding the geographical and cultural background to various European beliefs in what we would today call 'the undead'. To what extent are these diverse forms of 'posthumous magic' manifestations of common concepts concerning the dead and their possible malevolent effects on the living? To what extent are they the result of migrations, cultural influences and synchretism?

My own search for von Schertz's Magia posthuma was sparked by an interest in understanding the relationship between these diverse beliefs that sometime in the 18th century increasingly became understood under the common term of vampirism. Whether the brick placed in the mouth of a skeleton was actually put there to prevent the woman from harming the living or not, these are questions that the literature on vampires and other revenants should address more explicitly than is usually the case.

Furthermore, whatever people think of the find in Venice or of the media's way of telling the story about it, I think that this find has once and for all made archaeological evidence part of the field of vampires and other revenants. Unfortunately, a lot of the finds have only been described in reports and papers in native languages, that is e.g. the case of some of the relevant archaeological finds in the Czech Republic, so it can be difficult to get hold of exact information. Still, here is a subject that has only partially been explored and developed in the literature, so I hope we will see some interesting books and papers on the subject in the future.


I am grateful to Roberto Labanti for notifying me of recent developments in the case.

'Vampire Skeletons'

As reviewed on Taliesin meets the Vampires, and including a dramatization of Flückinger's examination of supposed vampires in Medvedja in 1732.

Jaw bones and carousing

I picked up the current issue (no 1 from 2012) of the Danish popular history magazine, Illustreret Videnskab Historie, because it contains an article on Danish funerary customs from the 16th to the 18th century. Like many similar magazines, this one tries to cater for readers seeking the unusual, sensational, and macabre.

One news story concerns an Italian archaeological find last autumn. In September 2011, the Daily Mail reported that during archaeological diggings in an ancient cemetery in Piombino in Tuscany, an 800 years old female skeleton was found with seven nails found driven through her jaw bone. Archaeologist Alfonso Forgione, from L'Aquila University, who led the dig said at the time:

'It's a very unusual discovery and at the same time fascinating. I have never seen anything like this before. I'm convinced because of the nails found in the jaw and around the skeleton the woman was a witch. She was buried in bare earth, not in a coffin and she had no shroud around her either, intriguingly other nails were hammered around her to pin down her clothes. This indicates to me that it was an attempt to make sure the woman even though she was dead did not rise from the dead and unnerve the locals who were no doubt convinced she was a witch with evil powers.'

As usual it is quite difficult to be certain what to make of the find, cf. my recent post on archaeological 'evidence' of vampire and revenant beliefs. News stories tend to be unreliable in these cases, so one should look out for what Forgione publishes on the matter.

An Italian actually plays a role in the aforementioned article on Danish funerary practices. This Italian visited Denmark in the 1620's and noted that when someone dies, the Danes do not grieve, they laugh, eat, drink and dance around the corpse. Apparently, when Denmark adopted the Lutheran faith, funerary practices changed, and people bid the deceased farewell by gathering socially for days. At times, they even gathered before the dying person had actually deceased.

When he or she had in fact died, the church bells chime to scare evil forces away. While the bells were chiming, the relations of the deceased notified the animals belonging to the deceased person of his or her death, so they would not accompany the deceased in death. News of the death were whispered into the ears of every animal, even the bees were informed as people gently knocked on the beehive.

Then the corpse was washed, dressed properly and put in a coffin. The feet, however, were kept without shoes to avoid the deceased from walking about, and as an extra precaution, the feet were tied together.

Over the next days, relatives and neighbours stopped by to participate in the wake. People sang, ate, played cards, drank beer and brandy, and danced until early morning.

In 1607, King Christian IV tried to prohibit the partying, but without success. A century later, pietist priests finally suppressed the carousing, promoting a more puritanical approach to death, so by the end of the 18th century all the partying was over. Nowadays, Danes usually participate in a service in a church or chapel followed by a sombre and relatively sober gathering, although named after the beer that is customarily imbibed: gravøl = grav (grave) + øl (beer).

The Danish history magazine is published by Bonnier Publications, and national versions are also published in the other Scandinavian countries, in Estonia, Latvia and in the Netherlands.

A Matter of Corporeal Evidence

'In the 1990s, a Spanish doctor revealed that, while watching a Dracula film, he began to suspect that the lore came about from people observing the effects of rabies. It's probably only a matter of time before another doctor, watching another movie on television, reveals a connection between the vampire lore and the common cold.

Here we must insist that the movies and the media in general are not good sources of information on vampire folklore, however sound they are in the matter of aliens, crop circles and conspiracy theories. In fact, studying the vampires by watching movies is like studying the Civil War by watching Gone with the Wind, except without all the accuracy.

This observation is even truer now than it was twenty years ago, for the fictional vampire has evolved wonderfully - and this evolution is enlightening. To reacquaint myself with the fiction, I actually bought two vampire movies and watched a third on television. Well, I bought the movies at a yard sale. For fifty cents each. Still, they weren't much of a bargain. Trying to watch one of the movies reminded me of trying to read the novel it was based on. I had several false starts before I got far enough into it to state definitively that it was mining fantasies at some remove from my own. In fact, I started to understand why the average doctor, watching a vampire movie, finds himself making up wild theories in preference to following the plot.'

Paul Barber's preface to the 2010 edition of his Vampires, Burial & Death is certainly one of the more amusing texts on vampires I have read in a while.

At the same time, Barber's preface pays due to the legendary Danish archaeologist who apparently played a key role in developing Barber's interest in vampires: P. V. Glob, author of among other books, Mosefolket, translated into English as The Bog People:

'Many years ago, my wife, an archaeologist, handed me a copy of P. V. Glob's The Bog People and suggested that I might enjoy reading it. She had apparently noticed my interest in things creepy and disgusting, and Glob's book is full of such. It is an account of Iron Age corpses that, steeped in acidic bogs, had stood the test of time and emerged millennia later in remarkably good condition.'

Peter Vilhelm Glob (1911-1985) was involved in examining a number of those 'bog people', bodies found in Danish bogs, and also played an important role at two major Danish museums: Moesgård Museum (where the so-called Grauballe Man is exhibited), and the National Museum.

In his preface, Barber says that 'Glob's book has stood the test of time as well,' although one must remember that a lot has happened during the fifty years since he wrote it. In a recent Danish study of mummified bog bodies, Mumificerede moselig (Høst & Søn, 2002), historian and classical philologist Allan A. Lund dissects the various theories that have been proposed regarding the bog bodies, and it is apparent that also some of the views proposed by Glob are dubious. Barber himself adds that he 'had a few quibbles with' Glob's book:

'It was clear to me, for example, that pinning bodies down in bogs had a practical purpose that Glob seemed unaware of: left to their own devices, bodies tend to pop to the surface of watery areas, simply because, as they decompose, the gases of decomposition alter their specific gravity, turning them into something resembling a buoyant, spooky balloon. Staking them in the bog not only released these gases but physically held the bodies in place.'

Barber clearly linked these considerations to the folklore of vampires: 'What if this phenomenon was the original reason for the staking of the vampires?' Answering this question led to his influential book on vampires, and later on to co-writing a preface to a 2004 reissue of Glob's book:

'In 2004, the New York Review of Books decided to republish the very author whose book had inspired me to write this book. My wife was asked to write an introduction to The Bog People, and she agreed on the condition that we do it together. This led me to reread it. I still admire The Bog People, although now it seems almost understated and tasteful. The bog bodies, pickled in tannic and humid acid, remained quietly and decorously in place throughout their long history, whereas our vampires, always restless, took every opportunity to plague the living. They stayed out late at night, made distressing noises, stank to high heaven and beyond, and often couldn't be counted on to stay dead even after they were staked or decapitated. They didn't have superpowers, but they certainly had staying power.'

Curiously, archaeological finds have rarely been an inspiration for vampire research, as Austrian historian Hagen Schaub notes in his contribution to the vampirism conference in Vienna in 2009, Knochen und Bestattungsriten: Die Bedeutung archäologischer Funde zum Wiedergänger- bzw. Vampirglauben, although there are many relevant cases at hand in the archaeological literature:

'In der durchaus reichhaltigen Literatur zum Thema Vampirismus bzw. Wiedergänger im weitesten Sinn besitzen Abhandlungen zu archäologischen Funden seltsamerweise einen nur geringen Stellenwert. Die meisten Übersichtswerke zu Vampiren befassen sich gar nicht mit den sog "Vampirgräbern", obwohl archäologischen Abhandlungen in durhaus großer Zahl vorhanden sind.'

Schaub's paper is probably the most thorough analysis of various archaeological excavations that might be interpreted as proof of beliefs in vampires or other revenants. Ultimately, he concludes that it is very uncertain if these finds can in fact be connected to revenant beliefs. The archaeological evidence can usually be interpreted in alternative ways than those relating to apotropaics, and in many cases the revenant interpretation relies on the researcher's lack of knowledge of actual revenant beliefs (as was also the case of the Spanish doctor that Barber refers to, in fact Juan Gómez-Alonso).

Recently, archaeological finds have of course been popularly connected with vampires through Matteo Borrini's discovery of a brick in a female skeleton's mouth in Venice. In some respects, we might say that this return to visum et repertum vampire and revenant research brings us full circle with Frombald, Glaser, and Flückinger's dissection of Serbian corpses. In stead of investigating old books, the vampire researchers have returned to study the corporeal remains of persons who may have been suspected of being revenants.

Still, it is difficult to interpret these corporeal remains which, fortunately, only haunt the curiosity of archaeologists and other researchers.

Caroline Arcini of Sweden's National Heritage Board recently studied about 600 cases of skeletons found buried face down, what is known as prone burials, and proposed that these burials were not accidental, but a deliberate and widespread practice of humiliating dead people for deviant deeds done while alive, cf. e.g. National Geographic's news story.

In her article in the June 2009 issue of Current Archaeology, Arcini rules out premature burial as a general explanation, and although individual burials can, perhaps, be explained as examples of e.g. revenant beliefs, she rules it out generally:

'In some cultures it is believed that individuals with supernatural abilities should be laid face down, for fear that their power could escape through the mouth. It has, for example, been adduced as an explanation for one of the 101 African slaves found buried in a 16th to 17th century cemetery in Barbados. The individual in question, a woman, had been placed on her own in the largest burial mound in the cemetery.

However, while several individuals in prone burials have their faces in the earth, the majority have the head turned to one side - in other words, in the same way as many of those who are buried supine. A similar idea is that people might be buried face down to prevent them rising to haunt the living. Both forms of explanation are plausible in relation to isolated graves, but are untenable in relation to concentrations.' (p. 32-3)

In her conclusion, Arcini says that 'the occurence of prone burials indicates that society sanctioned this apparently negative treatment of the dead. Presumably, the grieving relatives had little say in the matter; funerary customs have always been controlled by social mores.

An interesting feature of this study is the possibility of surveying, through archaeology, a form of behaviour that is deeply rooted in humankind. It appears that, whatever the religion, whatever the standards we live by or are compelled to follow, there are reactions - such as the negative response to prone burial - which are deeply rooted and universal. However, lamentable, isolating, and negative it seems to us in modern times, being buried face down is an ancient and global practice.' (p. 35)

It is very hard to evaluate Arcini's view on the basis of her article only. Fellow Swede, Katarina Harrison Lindbergh, is sceptical in her recent book on vampires, Vampyrernas historia (Norstedts, 2011), as she finds Arcini's hypothesis an overinterpretation of the archaeological facts. Sweden, by the way, is the site of the remarkable find of the so-called Bocksten Man, who was 'poled' or staked in a way that all too easily would ignite the imagination of 'vampirologists'.

Archaeology, in any case, provides us with more interesting information than the theories proposed by people like Gómez-Alonso whose knowledge of 'vampires' is based on films or modern novels. However enjoyable and in other ways emotionally or intellectually stimulating such fiction can be, like Barber, 'we must insist that the movies and the media in general are not good sources of information on vampire folklore'. An issue of your local journal of archaeology, on the other hand, might perhaps be a better stimulus and inspiration.