'Vampire' discovered in mass grave

[Adsos Letter]

Source: NewScientist.com

A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary documents.


(Image: Matteo Borrini)

Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth (see right) while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice (see second image here).

At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.

The belief in vampires probably arose because blood is sometimes expelled from the mouths of the dead, causing the shroud to sink inwards and tear. Borrini, who presented his findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver, Colorado, last week, claims this might be the first such vampire to have been forensically examined. The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126985.200-vampire-discovered-in-mass-grave.html

There is another image at the site, with the skull in situ

[readmoreoften]

1. How do we know that the scientists who make up that crap aren't vampires?

Prove that they're not. I don't buy all this scientific mumbo-jumbo. It's all an elitist vampire conspiracy.

[Adsos Letter]

5. How do you know I'm not a vampire?

[cliffordu]

6. BITE ME

And we'll figure it out....


:rofl:

[jobycom]

2. Looks more like Gene Simmon's ancestor with petrified tongue. nt

[WCGreen]

3. Now that....

is funny....

[Adsos Letter]

4. That IS funny!

:spray:

[TankLV]

15. I thought it was Lorena Bobbet's grave...

[EFerrari]

7. "First tombstoned DU poster / w pizza"

[Adsos Letter]

8. !

:spray:

[EFerrari]

9. I really enjoy these OPs. Thanks so much!

:hi:

[orleans]

10. i read that you had to drive a steak through the heart

apparently people have been going about it all wrong

no wonder the world is so overrun by fucking vampires!

[Hekate]

11. Steaks are better cooked rare & eaten, then they can kill by heart attack. But a stake is quicker.nt

[orleans]

12. that's hysterical! i knew i was so tired when i posted that, and

something just didn't seem quite right--i remember thinking: am i spelling this wrong?

(maybe i was hungry too? :shrug: )

[Hekate]

13. ROFL. You like your steak rare? I'm guessing you were hungry.

:rofl:

Hekate

[TankLV]

14. Anybody seen Buffy - why did they muzzle her?!?!

all those campus vampires are now running around unchallenged!!!

oh no!!!!