'Vampire' discovered in mass grave

[China]

'Vampire' discovered in mass grave

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.

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

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.

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[Peeping Wizard]

Nice find. Cool story.

[Buford T. Justice]

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.

I do not understand how this can spread disease.

[SKINS@THEGOALLINE]

A woman with a small brick in her mouth, sounds like a distant relative of Ann Coulter.

[Thiebear]

Okay i would think Ann would be a Freaking FANTASTIC vampire.

She got all the tools... those hands creep me out in during primetime with perfect lighting.

[Zguy28]

You wouldn't catch me digging up plague victims. I can see it now, a pandemic of new, mutated form of bubonic plague unleashed. Yikes.

[Mooka]

I do not understand how this can spread disease.

They believed that those died from the plague would rise from the grave to spread the disease.

Imagine you know nothing about the concept of germs. How would you explain one person infecting another without deliberately doing so? Also imagine you believed vampires were spreading the plague and you dug up a corpse finding its hair and nails still growing. That **** would blow your mind.

[RammsteinSkins]

That's a pretty cool find. Vampires FTW.

[MurrayH81]

That looks to be a good counter to Nancy Pelosi's mouth. I vote for the rock treatment prior to burying her alive.