16th-Century ‘Vampire’ Buried With Brick in Her Mouth — to Stop Blood-Sucker From Eating the Dead

New York Post ^ | March 22, 2024 | Alex Mitchell

[nickcarraway]

Scientists have recreated the face of a 16th-century woman with a brick jammed into her mouth, an object apparently wedged there to stop her from eating the dead — as Italian locals believed she was a vampire.

The spooky story begins at a mass grave discovered on the Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, a location used as a bubonic plague quarantine in the late 1500s and 1600s. In 2006, archeological studies found some bodies that were buried centuries ago.

“When they supposedly identified a vampire, one of those responsible for the plague according to popular myth at the time, they introduced the stone [brick] as a protective element, preventing it from feeding and also from infecting other people,” forensic researcher Cícero Moraes told South West News Service of the bizarre discovery.

[Bonemaker]

“16th-Century ‘Vampire’ Buried With Brick in Her Mouth — to Stop Blood-Sucker From Eating the Dead”

Now it would be duck tape.

[fidelis]

We laugh, but you can’t argue with success. There’s no evidence she drank anybody’s blood after that, now is there?

[ConservativeMind]

You rock!

[FormerFRLurker]

How did they know it was a woman?

Female skeletons have wider pelvises, larger Q-angle, and different shaped skulls than male skeletons.

[VTenigma]

Seems you’re pigeon holing how this skeleton may identify.

[FormerFRLurker]

Guilty as charged!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks nickcarraway.