Just in time for spooky season, archaeologists have unleashed grisly new information about how a “real-life vampire” spent her final moments.
An elite female “vampire” who died some 350 years ago was first unearthed two years ago at a medieval graveyard in Pień, Poland. Dubbed Zosia by researchers, new illustrations of what the 18-year-old vampiress might have looked like suggest she had fair skin, blue eyes, short hair and a single protruding incisor tooth.
Zosia was also laid to reset with a silk cap on her head, which signifies that she was of a high social status.
But her rank wouldn’t save her from being accused of evil: Of about 100 other skeletons at the grave site, only Zosia was covered with a sickle across her neck and a giant padlock on her toe.
Professor Dariusz Polinski, who has led recent research on Zosia with study partner Magda Zagrodzka, told the Daily Mail, “It can be assumed that for some reason those burying the woman were afraid that she would rise from the grave. Perhaps they feared she was a vampire.”
Experts believe that the sickle and padlock were fitted to the corpse as a form of “double protection” for villagers out of fear that the “vampire” could rise from the grave; the sickle would’ve ensured that she would be decapitated had she attempted to rise from her grave.
“The sickle was not laid flat, but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up most likely the head would have been cut off or injured,” Polinski explained.
Polinski and Zagrodzka worked with Oscar Nilsson, a facial recognition expert who took a digital scan of Zosia’s skull and made a copy using a 3D printer. He used clay to mold new “muscles” of her face, as well as silicon to give new skin.
Bone scans examined by medical investigator Dr. Heather Edgar at the University of New Mexico found an abnormality in Zosia’s breast bone.
The abnormality suggests there might have been a physical deformity that caused her great pain and “marked this person [to others] in a negative way,” being a reason she was feared to be a vampire before she was sacrificed and buried, Edgar told the Times.
With the Swedish-Polish wars ensuing during the time of her death, researchers believe it’s possible that Zosia was Swedish and considered an “unwanted outsider.”
About 30 of the 100 graves were found with signs of being restrained, which ultimately led to the site’s nickname, “Field of Vampires.”
Polinski said that the cemetery was specifically for people who were “excluded from the community;” however, all of the graves were left unmarked and there are no written records regarding the bodies.
Among the other graves include a partially exhumed child, a woman with advanced syphilis, a pregnant woman and a man with a child’s corpse at his feet.
Some bodies were turned face down, some were weighed down with stones and others had coins in their mouths.
“Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing them with a stone,” Polinski told the Daily Mail.
Zosia having the sickle over her neck suggests that she was feared the most by those who killed her.
According to Smithsonian magazine, Eastern Europeans initially became fearful of vampires in the 11th century, believing that “some people who died would claw their way out of the grave as blood-sucking monsters that terrorized the living.”
By the 17th century, “unusual burial practices became common across Poland in response to a reported outbreak of vampires,” Science Alert reported.
Polinkski and Zagrodzka plan to return for more excavations, including a night-time excavation using fluorescent lighting that could uncover new bones.
The latest findings about Zosia, the “real-life vampire,” are the subject of a new two-part documentary called “Field of Vampires,” which will air on Sky History on Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 at 9 p.m.
