Maddeline Voas

University of West Florida

11/25/2014

Deposition of Dracula: Deviant Vampire Burials in the

Archaeological Record

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Introduction

The deposition of a deceased individual can illuminate a range

of factors surrounding mortuary practice and the social

perception of an individual during life; it can even aid in

interpretation of a society as a whole. By understanding common

mortuary practices within a time frame or pertaining to a

specific culture, indications of unusual burial practices can be

more easily identifiable. Understanding and interpreting the

historical record of the region studied, especially relating to

the cultural practices surrounding social deviancy, will allow

researchers to identify the mechanism behind the unusual burial.

Individual burials that do not follow the pattern or norm of

mortuary practice in a particular area are generally the graves

of the diseased, criminals, and slaves. Aside from these three

variants, there is an entirely separate category found with that

of unusual burials of deviants, and that is the burial of a

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revenant as perceived by the society. A revenant is a corpse that

comes back from the dead to plague the living. It is important to

note that there is absolutely no basis to believe these corpses

were in fact plaguing the living, but rather the society or

village attributed happenstances to this particular deceased

individual upon a variety of factors. Necrophobia and a

misunderstanding of natural biological processes and disease can

be attributed to these superstitions. This paper focuses on one

harmful entity, that of the vampire, but there are others such as

witches and ghosts that also can be identified in excavated

burials depending on the region the deposition is located.

Modern westernized conceptions of the vampire are not

synonymous with traditional belief. The modern perception is

strongly influenced by what is seen in fiction as well as in

filmography. Much of the iconography surrounding the modern

perception of the vampire stems from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The

vampire of modern times is classified as having pale skin, fanged

teeth, and a thirst for blood. Upon further analysis, it is found

that much of the modern views of the vampire do in fact stem from

traditional folkloric interpretations of a decomposing corpse.

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Eastern Europe is the region most generally associated as

the primary origin and also where the folklore of the vampire is

the most well-known. In this region, the legend of the vampire

percolated into the mortuary treatment of the dead, as evidenced

by mortuary archaeological analysis. It is consistently stressed

in this paper that the importance of understanding burial in an

archaeological context is a vital attribute that must be

understood in the interpretation and analysis of written accounts

and the folkloric beliefs of a region. This paper strives to

interpret deviant ‘vampire’ deposition in a multifaceted fashion

utilizing culture and folklore, biological processes, and

archaeology.

Cross-Cultural Data

In order to understand the archaeological setting of social

deviancy, particularly in cases of vampirism, a historical and

cultural background must first be attained to understand the

depositional environment and potential analyses of health,

disease, and trauma. It is important to note that there is a

cross-cultural belief in vampires, and can either be associated

with demons that plague the living or reanimated dead

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individuals. It is undetermined as to why the belief of vampirism

spread, but Wright (1993) speculates that the belief in vampires

has an ancient origin that spread outwards from ancient

Mesopotamia into other territories. As time progressed, the

dispersal of this belief created a diverse typology that

classifies particular regions. In some cases, vampires are not

attributed with consuming blood but instead they being inflictors

of illness and disease.

The earliest mention of belief in vampires comes from

Chaldean and Assyrian tablets which describe a demon named Ekimmu

who was the collective spirit of the reanimated dead (Wright

1993). This demonic entity is associated with wreaking havoc upon

the realm of the living. The belief in vampirism in ancient

Greece did not develop until Christianity was established in the

area, and the ancient Greeks believed that individuals could be

possessed by an evil spirit or ghost after death, rather than

individuals themselves reanimating after death (Wright 1993).

Vrkyolakas is a term used in the Russian and Greek languages that

translates to the term 'wolf-fairy', but equates to the word

vampire in terms of description. Summers (1968) speculates that

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the superstition of vampires in Greece reflects a Slavic

influence rather than Hellenic on the Greek mainland, based on

the terminology used to classify vampires. The Greek isles

maintain original Greek terminology in the mention of the

vampire, therefore they appear to be less influenced by Slavic

folklore (Summers 1968).The primary method of dispelling a

vampire, in this region, was through exorcism after exhumation.

If the exorcism was deemed unsuccessful, the body was cut into

pieces, and if this also was ineffective, the body would be

burnt. Burning the remains was an extreme measure because it was

not a common practice in Greece and also took a long amount of

time and skill to completely burn the remains (Wright 1993). As

opposed to ancient Greece, modern Greece has two species of

Vrkyolakas: the deceased individual and the individual

predestined to become a vampire upon their death.

The most prominent examples of vampire belief and

superstition come from an assortment of countries in Eastern

Europe, especially Romania, Hungary, Serbia, and Poland (Morse

1993). In Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria the vampire figure

emerged from previous superstitions unrelated but still

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surrounding the belief of the dead returning to plague the

living. Russia contributed the concept that it is necessary to

drive a stake through the heart of a vampire in one blow. Upon

the second blow to the heart, the corpse will reanimate and

continue to plague the living (Wright 1993). In Serbia and

Bulgaria vampirism is considered to be hereditary and related to

the spread of an epidemic. Upon understanding how diseases are

transmitted, it would make sense that vampirism was heritable. An

unusual method of ridding the corpse of a vampire is the process

of bottling in Bulgaria. A magic specialist lures the vampire

away from their place of hiding and into the bottle by use of

religious talismans. After being closed shut by an effigy cork,

the bottle would be placed into a fire that would subsequently

shield the vampire from the outside world and terminated his

existence. There were particular fears and anxiety in Romania

relating to re-animated dead because they believed the soul of a

deceased individual could not enter the afterlife until after a

period of forty days (Summers 1968). Because of this belief, the

body was exhumed three to seven years after death depending on

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age at death, and if the body had not undergone decomposition, it

was speculated to be a vampire.

In Romania, a typology of vampires exists in three

categories: the dead vampire, the living vampire, and the vârcolac

(Summers 1968). The dead vampires are those of re-animated

corpses containing either the soul of the deceased or the soul of

an evil spirit of demonic origin. The live vampires are

individuals predestined to become vampires and at some point

during their life span, their soul is introduced to the re-

animated dead. The vârcolac is mythological in origin and

classified as being pale and having dry skin. In folklore, it is

an animal that consumes the sun and moon and, as a result, is the

culprit for both solar and lunar eclipses. The vârcolac is thought

to be the souls of deceased children that had not been baptized.

Romanian terminology for vampires is either strigoi or moroii

(Summers 1968). Strigoi was the term more commonly used in Romania.

As for killing the strigoi, there are several unique methods.

Placing incense grains and pebbles into the bodily orifices,

particularly that of the mouth and quicks of the nails, was used

to provide the vampire with something to chew at upon revival.

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Grain, mainly millet, must be strewn around the vicinity of the

body so that the vampire will not venture outside of his burial

environment. The vampire will be too busy counting the grain

throughout the night and will perish in the morning sun as a

result of this. Another attribute is burying the vampire in a

prone position, which is evident in the archaeological record.

During the disposition of a female thought to be a vampire in

Romania, burial in a prone position is accompanied by apotropaic

measures where the body is buried in a deep deposition and forks

are plunged through the chest area and eyes.

How Revenant Vampires Came to Be

There are four categories relating to the creation of

vampires according to Barber (1988). These four types are

predisposition, predestination, events, and things left undone.

“Predisposition” regards individuals that do not conform to the

rest of society, both in life, with the example of alcoholics in

Eastern Europe, and death, with the example of suicides.

“Predestination” is the determinant relating to actions beyond

that of the individual, whether it be their conception during a

time frame deemed holy or an individual born out of wedlock. When

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an infant is born with abnormalities, such as excessive body hair

or a cleft lip, also predispose that infant to becoming a vampire

after death. The presence of a caul during birth also indicates a

predestined individual. Events” are related to things people do

or things that have been done to them. An example of an event

leading to vampirism would be children who die prior to their

baptism. “Events” also relate to those additionally ‘turned’

vampires caused by blood withdrawal and subsequent consumption by

the ‘original’ vampire in that community. “Things left undone”

coincide with funerary and burial practices and are related to

predisposition. Individuals who have died of suicide or those

excommunicated from the church are generally buried in a

different context. Within some cultures, those accused of being

vampires are typically the first victims of an epidemic,

suicides, and also individuals excommunicated from the church.

Tuberculosis and porphyria are two of the primary illnesses

associated with vampirism. There is a parallel between vampires

and a transmittable bacterium, and that is an attribute of

invisibility. Much like a vampire moves unseen in the night

plaguing the living, the transmission of infectious diseases is

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uncertain, and the mechanisms of transmission are also invisible

(Bell 2001). This analogy may be why diseases are tied to

folkloric or mythological explanations, because of its use in

explaining and interpreting the unknown.

Tuberculosis is a pulmonary disease that is caused by a

mycobacterium and is transmitted via coughing, sneezing, and

vocalizing (Roberts and Buikstra 2003). Symptoms that correlate

with the image of a vampire could be pale skin, a fading

appetite, and skin ulcers. The act of coughing up blood is also a

potential feature of pulmonary tuberculosis, and this may be

attributed to vampirism based on the component of blood. The

skeletal evidence for tuberculosis represents a minority of those

who suffered from the disease at a chronic level. The vertebral

column is the most visible and most frequent indicator of

tuberculosis, specifically in the bodies of lumbar and lower

thoracic vertebrae (Roberts and Buikstra 2003). Lesions on the

ribs and periostitis on the diaphysis of long bones are also

skeletal indicators of tuberculosis. Though the skeletal record

can show instances of tuberculosis, it does not always lend

itself to presentation in the skeletal record. This circumstance

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is associated with an issue in bioarchaeology commonly referred

as the osteological paradox. Most who suffered from a variant of

tuberculosis will not exhibit any signs of the disease in the

skeleton. In areas of new exposure to the disease, those

afflicted will die quickly and will show no signs of the disease

skeletally. These attributes are a product of the short length of

time from transmission to tomb (Roberts and Buikstra 2003).

In the United States, New England colonies of the 18th and

19th century were affected by tuberculosis (Sledzik and

Bellantoni 1994). There are 12 recorded accounts of vampirism in

this region. Based on pathological analyses, many of the

excavations have yielded conclusions that indeed these

individuals accused of vampirism after death were in fact victims

themselves of tuberculosis. The first individual to suffer from

tuberculosis would infect those who were in the closest proximity

to the individual, and these individuals were generally family

members. The beliefs that the victims of consumption were

vampires translate to the effects and transmission of the

disease.

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Porphyria is a congenital blood disease that is identifiable

by the absence of porphorin in the blood due to the accumulation

of the porphorin outside standard locations in the body (Dayan &

Dayan 2011). Some speculate porphyria could have played a role in

the origins of vampire folklore belief. This idea is based on the

similarity between the morphological conditions of the disease

and the resemblance it has to folklore accounts, especially

pertaining to appearance. A chemist, David Dolphin, specifically

has speculated that porphyric individuals helped in establishing

the origins of vampire mythology. He bases his interpretation on

Bram Stoker’s fictionalized attributes of Dracula and the

symptoms of porphyria (Dayan and Dayan 2011). Individuals with

porphyria are photosensitive and have pale skin, receding gums

that would create an illusion of elongated canines, and

discoloration of the teeth and nails (Morse 1993). Barber (1988)

disagrees that porphyria played a role in shaping the vampire

belief because there is no mention of the characteristics of the

disease in historical records of vampire exhumation.

The Execution of the Vampire

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It is important to read the historical accounts of

attributed vampirism in order to understand how, while looking

past postdepositional processes and alternative explanations,

anti-vampirism measures are represented in the burial record.

Several case studies annotated by Barber (1988) aid in

understanding what measures the individuals of a particular

community took in ‘killing’ the hypothesized vampire permanently

and what characteristics were expressed in the individual that

the community considered to be evident of vampirism.

Peter Plogojowitz was an 18th-century Serbian individual

accused of vampirism after death. Nine individuals in the village

of Kisilova, Serbia publicly announced that Peter had visited

them in the night, and according to Barber (1988) all of these

individuals subsequently died themselves. This information gave

the villagers enough just cause to uncover his grave ten weeks

after primary deposition. Records state that his hair, beard, and

nails had grown since initial deposition, and he had blood

exuding from his mouth. The corpse did not have any foul odor

associated with it. The local priest and villagers saw this as

further evidence that Plogojowitz was, in fact, a vampire and

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therefore they agreed to follow protocol of revenant disposal in

order to destroy the vampire eternally. They drove a stake

through the heart of the corpse of Peter Plogojowitz. In order to

ensure that Plogojowitz’s corpse would cease to plague the

living, the villagers burned his body after he was staked.

The case of Arnold Paole is another example relating first-

hand accounts of the measures that were taken to protect villages

from revenant activity and what evidence of vampiric activity was

substantial in coming to these conclusions. Paole was a former

soldier who suffered an untimely death and was rumored to haunt

citizens of a Serbian village. These factors became a curiosity

of officials and therefore the accounts of the events that took

place after Paole’s death were recorded by these officials in a

report known as the Visum et Repertum (Barber 1988). He had died by

falling off of a hay wagon and breaking his neck. After his

death, four people in Medvegia, Serbia had died and just the same

as Plogojowitz, these four individuals were claiming Paole was

visiting them in the night prior to their deaths. After a period

of forty days, his body was exhumed. According to the Visum et

Repertum his corpse had not decayed, blood was on his body and

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facial orifices, his skin had fallen off, and he had new skin and

nails. This evidence led the authorities to believe he was a

vampire and certain procedures must be fulfilled so as not to

allow this revenant to plague the community any further. The

authorities drove a wooden stake through his heart, and the body

was supsequently cremated. According to the report, Paole’s

corpse emitted a groaning noise while the stake pierced through

his skin, and he bled as a result. Those who died after Paole

were exhumed and also had a stake driven through their hearts if

they appeared to have symptoms of vampirism.

As chronicled in the two preceding paragraphs, the

historical accounts of witnesses during the exhumation of an

accused vampire list various peculiarities of the body that are

all explainable as results of decomposition. Reports made by

informants claim the body had not decomposed, but once these

informants describe their interpretation, it is found out that

indeed the corpse was decomposing. The stages of decomposition

were not fully understood by the informants. Decomposition does

not occur at a specified rate across the board; many factors,

both external and internal, alter the process. The Visum et Repertum

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explained that Arnold Paole’s corpse had evidence of new skin and

nail growth, which is easily explained by skin slippage (Barber

1988). Having blood at the mouth of the corpse or other orifices

results from putrefaction, as does the loosening of the hair and

bloating. Within the historical reports, bloating results from

vampire corpse being distended from the blood of his victims, and

the loosening of the hair created the illusion of hair growth.

Other than in instances of disease, those who were accused of

being vampires had died sudden deaths, and this explained their

desire to prey on the living so as to continue on living but in a

state that is neither life nor death. Individuals who die sudden

deaths exhibit different decomposition rates than those that died

of natural causes, such as old age. Those who died suddenly

decompose at slower rates (Barber 1988). In regards to claims of

the revenant consuming the shroud around the mouth area, which

will be discussed in a later paragraph, decomposition can be

revealed as the culprit. Capillary attraction of the moisture and

bodily fluids exuded from the decomposition process result in the

adherence of the cloth to the region around the mouth. The cloth

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of the shroud would have stayed attached to the mouth region as

the decomposition process continued and the area became dry.

Archaeological Context

The archaeological record contains a very minor subset of

the entire population being studied, and therefore it is

important to understand and interpret an unusual burial when

faced with one. Understanding the folklore and historical

accounts of vampirism in a region can help in interpreting a

deviant burial. According to Murphy (2008), there are six basic

criteria in evaluating a particular deposition as that of a

deviant: primary and secondary burial locations are not in

concordance with the rest of the burials in that area or time

frame, where mass burials are indicators of deviant burial

(especially if there are no historical accounts of a crisis for

that burial), unusual artifacts and unusual taphonomy, when

cremations are found at sites where inhumation was practiced,

when inhumations are found at sites where cremation was

practiced, and when the skeleton shows evidence trauma related

crime or torture. When looking at the burial itself, individuals

in a prone position, individuals covered in rocks so as to keep

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them in place, decapitation, evidence of stakes, deep deposition,

and individuals who have particular body parts tied may also be

indicative of social deviancy (Murphy 2008). An example of

interpreting a burial as that of a ‘vampire’ would be a case

study at Taxiarhis Myrintzou on Lesbos Island in Greece (Murphy

2008). A unique skeleton was recovered during a burial excavation

at a grave site. Three bent stakes were uncovered with the

remains of a 60+ year old male who had an assortment of

pathologies and skeletal deformities. The most severe pathology

this male faced was frontal sinusitis. These stakes were not in

association with a coffin and the grave was too narrow, therefore

it was concluded that the stakes indicate this individual may

have been intentionally staked after death. This individual had

various deformities that would have caused physical disability

that, according to the historical record, predisposed individuals

as revenant vampires. It is speculated that the stakes included

in the burial resulted from an apotropaic ritual to prevent this

individual from becoming a vampire after death.

There was an unusual burial in a cemetery that housed

remains of plague victims of the 16th and 17th centuries in a

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mass grave site in Nouvo Lazzaretto Island, Venice (Nuzzolese and

Borrini 2010). The excavators came across an unusual burial of an

adult female with a brick lodged in the oral cavity. Utilizing

skull morphology and the caput humeris, Nuzzolese & Borrini

(2010) were able to deduce that the individual was female. To

identify the age, they used secondary dentine in the teeth and

found that the individual was elderly with an estimated age range

of 56-66 years old. The individual had preserved from the cranium

to the diaphyses of the humeri and this was attributed to biotic

taphonomic processes and interpreted as an event where

gravediggers were depositing remains of a later plague victim and

cut into the grave. An interesting factor to note is that the

articulation of the sternum and clavicle, the humerus and

scapula, that of the cervical vertebrae were still intact as was

that of the temporomandibular joint (Nuzzolese and Borrini 2012).

These factors aid in interpreting the disturbance of these

remains as occurring prior to complete skeletonization, therefore

in a state of decomposition. Upon analyzing the remains, post

depositional placement of the brick was ruled out. The mandible

was still articulated in the glenoid fossa of the temporal bone

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and the surrounding sediments only consisted of bone fragments

and there was no evidence suggesting the brick came from

surrounding sediments. The breaking of the alveolar region and

loss of the first and second left incisor found in the soil also

contribute to the notion that this brick was forcibly lodged into

the oral cavity of this individual at the time of deposition.

Nuzzolese and Borrini (2010) utilized their forensic and

odontological research in an attempt to make sense of the unusual

burial, especially relating to the placement of the brick in the

oral cavity. They assume that the gravediggers came across this

burial while digging a grave for a victim of the plague and

noticed that the shroud had a hole relating to the mouth. As a

result, they interpreted that the corpse was indeed a reanimated

corpse that had tried to eat through the shroud and was

responsible for the disease. In order to ward off further

instances of plague caused by this vampire, the gravediggers

risked their lives to lodge a decent sized brick into the oral

cavity. There is evidence of a shroud based on skeletal analysis

of the remains regarding the verticalization of the clavicle as

well as the splaying of the ribs that would have been caused by

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shrouding an individual. Nuzzolese and Borrini (2012) rule out

that this individual was buried in a coffin because there is no

evidence of the hardware or the wooden container in the

surrounding sediments. Although there are no examples in Venice

of vampires eating shrouds so as to plague the living, in Polish

folklore a nachzehrer is known to masticate clothing and shrouds.

As mentioned in a previous paragraph, New England was

experiencing a tuberculosis pandemonium and the folklore

associated with this disease also ran rampant. Those accused of

being vampires are the initially infected individuals, and the

archaeological record shows evidence of this. An example comes

from a 19th-century cemetery in Griswold, Connecticut with an

unusual burial where the skull and femora were placed in a “skull

and crossbones” position atop ribs and vertebrae that were also

in disarray (Sledzik and Bellantoni 1994). Walton Cemetery was a

family cemetery in a rural farm that consisted of 29 burials. The

individual deposited in the unusual burial was that of the

complete skeleton of a 50 to 55-year-old male. Pale grey pitted

periostitic lesions were found on the left second, third, and

fourth ribs near the rib head upon analysis of the skeletal

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remains. Periostitis was also found on the distal portion of the

left tibia and left fibula. The pathological analysis led these

researchers to believe that the individual may have suffered from

pulmonary tuberculosis. Even if this individual had not suffered

from pulmonary tuberculosis, the symptoms the individual was

having during life could have been interpreted as tuberculosis,

otherwise known as consumption. Historical accounts in New

England attribute the destruction of a vampire by the burning of

the blood-filled heart. The researchers speculate that this

individual was in an advanced state of decay when initially

uncovered and therefore there was no heart to be burned (Sledzik

and Bellantoni 1994). Sledzik and Bellantoni (1994) speculate

decapitation was the apotropaic method utilized by the residents

of Griswold. This speculation matches up with the fact that

separation of the head from the rest of the body was an accurate

means of revenant disposal in Europe.

Alternative Perspectives

Although deviant burial is a known phenomenon that is

practiced in many cultures, it is important to address the

validity of classifying skeletal remains and the associated

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content as individuals accused of being social deviants and

vampires. Poland has a history of assessing deviant burials as

victims of anti-vampirism (Gardela & Kajkowski 2013). Although

classifying deviant burial as representing anti-vampirism tactics

is an exciting avenue of research, understanding other possible

explanations should be valued at the same decree. It is found in

archaeology that the interpretation of the tattered remnants

cultures leave behind is attributed to the archaeologists. Some

archaeologists are known to make boisterous idealistic claims on

findings, while others are more reserved in their judgments.

Vampire burial analysis and studies are of a similar principle;

some researchers believe that there are other explanations to

describe these unusual burials found from time to time in the

burial record. According to Gardela and Kajkowski (2013), in the

past twelve years there has been an attempt to refine methods of

interpreting deviant burial. Judicial archaeology is a new

subfield of practice in Poland and can be used to refine previous

interpretations of deviant burial.

Medieval Poland has instances of uncovering apotropaic

remedies in the archaeological record. Historical accounts show

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that there was a belief in vampires, though during the medieval

period these revenants did not classify under that term. Bonifacy

Zielonka’s research from the 1950’s was the first principal study

on deviant burial in medieval Poland and were also the basis for

more recent analyses of deviant burial in this region. Within the

past decade, research in this area is altering because of the

development of Judicial Archaeology where there is a strong focus

on the politics of a culture, especially relating to legal

practices. According to Gardela and Kajkowski (2013), a

researcher Przemyslaw Zydok compiled a categorical list in

interpreting burials as deviant in 2004. This list contained

prone burials, burials including stones, burials of individuals

indicative of decapitation, evidence of stakes and knives lodged

in the body, and a variety of other factors. Utilizing this list,

Gardela and Kajkowski (2013) attempted to refute some of the

claims by proposing alternative explanations for three unusual

depositional attributes: prone burial, decapitated individuals,

and stone burials.

Prone burial is a known practice in a variety of cultures

and usually is interpreted as atypical as opposed to supine or

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extended burials. Prone burials are thus attributed to that of a

social deviant. It is a method found in medieval Europe, which is

the focus of this interpretive section, particularly of Slavs,

Scandinavians, and Anglo-Saxons. Prone burials in Poland are

those of adult males between the tenth to thirteenth centuries.

There are historical records that support the idea that prone

burials are measures taken in regard with the fear of revenants

returning from the dead and plaguing the living. Other forms of

textual evidence from this period state that prone burials are

associated with shame of that individual or to protect that

individual from the sins they had committed in their lives.

Though I agree that there are other reasons for prone burials, I

feel that a prone burial is too strongly supported using

historical evidence and first-hand accounts of revenant disposal

to consider the alternative interpretations.

Although I do not fully concur with the argument of

Gardela and Kajkowski (2013) regarding prone burial, I do agree

with their alternative interpretations of decapitation in the

burial record. Decapitation alone could represent an assortment

of depositional circumstances and not just that of an apotropaic

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remedy. While keeping judicial archaeology in mind, interpreting

decapitation as a result of punishment is strongly supported,

especially when there is an accompanying perforation on the

cranium. These perforations could represent the notion that the

heads put on display would serve as a political measure in order

to instill fear of those who might commit the same crime.

Decapitation could also play a role in religious practices or

could have been an act of punishment within a pagan society

(Gardela and Kajkowski 2013). It is safe to say that considering

a burial as a vampire burial based on the evidence of

decapitation alone is conditional; there are numerous alternative

explanations in both the cultic and legal spheres in Poland.

There are twenty recorded instances of burials containing

purposely placed stones in Poland, generally found with males in

three regions of the body: the chest, lower limbs, and the feet.

Stoning amongst the Slavs was an act of directing punishment

towards traitors. Gardela and Kajkowski (2013) claim that there

are multiple interpretations in Poland of burials found with

purposefully placed stones. They hypothesize that stones placed

on the corpse could have been an effort by those who buried the

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individual to protect the body from biotic factors such as

scavenging animals or grave robberies. They also speculate that

it could be related to ritual surrounding Christian burial where

placing stones on the head or around that region of the body

would aid in ensuring that the individual was facing east. I do

not agree with these two assumptive claims because I do not feel

enough evidence was given in interpreting these claims as

successful alternative explanations. Gardela and Kajkowski (2013)

also state alternative interpretations when stones are around the

skull and neck. The gravediggers could have set the stones there

as measures of having the corpse maintain a closed mouth. They

speculate this would have been done to ensure a closed mouth at

the deceased’s funeral. Alternatively, Slavs believed that an

open-mouthed corpse could become a revenant, therefore by placing

stones under the head the corpse’s mouth would not open. Of these

alternative explanations, I only agree with one, and that is

relating to the Slavic belief of protection from the re-animated

dead. This interpretation is still related to the prevention of

revenant acts and is the most supported of the claims of Gardela

and Kajkowski (2013). It is interesting to note that burials

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including rocks have yet to be considered in the context of prone

burial. This factor may be attributed to the fact that as of 2013

only twenty published accounts of medieval stone burials have

been uncovered in Poland.

Conclusion

Important measures must be taken into consideration upon

interpretation of an atypical burial. Archaeologists’ discoveries

of vampire burials are hot topics for the media, and it is vital

to take measures in correct interpretation so as not to provide

academia and the public with inaccurate information. Upon

investigating the archaeological context of a burial,

understanding the various anti-vampire remedies in a particular

region and the folkloric beliefs will assist in interpretation.

Researchers like Gardela and Kajkowski (2013) warn that there are

alternative explanations for the presence of an unusual burial.

Alternatives must always be taken into consideration upon

interpretation and the interpretation with the fewest assumptions

must always be utilized in research. Vampire burials may appear a

romanticized interpretation in many of the archaeological

findings in Northern Europe and the New World, but if the claim

29

can strongly be supported by ethnohistoric and folkloric

accounts, the interpretation remains a valid one. Overall, this

study was a composite of the cultural, historical, and

archaeological accounts of those who believed in vampires in the

past and the first two truly do have an impact upon

interpretation of the third.

30

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