Archaeologists unearth unusual 'vampire burial' in Italian baby cemetery

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

The skeleton of a 10-year-old with a rock lodged in its mouth found in an Italian cemetery of babies has been deemed a "vampire burial," researchers say.

The child's skeleton was found by archaeologists from the University of Arizona and Stanford University, working alongside Italian researchers over the summer at La Necropoli dei Bambini, or the Cemetery of the Babies, in the Italian region of Umbria.

The child's body was positioned on its left side lying in a tomb created by two roof tiles up against a wall, according the University of Arizona.

» Archaeologists opened a mysterious Egyptian sarcophagus. Here's what they found

Researchers found the skeleton of a 10-year-old child in a grave in Italy. A rock was inserted in the child's mouth to keep the child from rising from the grave and spreading malaria, researchers say.

icon to expand image

What's particularly disturbing about the find is that the child's jaw was forced open after death and a rock was pushed in, purposefully, researchers said. University of Arizona professor and archaeologist David Soren, who was involved in the research, said this burial ritual was to ensure that the child didn't rise from the dead and spread malaria.

» Archaeologists find ancient horse buried in ash in Italy's Pompeii

"I've never seen anything like it. It's extremely eerie and weird," Soren said in a  statement. "Locally, they're calling it the 'Vampire of Lugnano.'"

The child's sex is unknown. Age was determined based on the child's teeth.

Other children at the burial site were found alongside raven talons, toad bones and bronze cauldrons, researchers say.

Bioarcheologist Jordan Wilson, a University of Arizona doctoral student who analyzed the skeletal remains in Italy, said the practice of burying someone like this (known as a vampire burial), with a rock in the mouth of a body held to the ground is unusual, but was more common in Roman culture.

» Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old remains of man crushed by rock when Vesuvius erupted

In Venice, an older woman now known as the "Vampire of Venice" from the 16th-century was found with a brick in her mouth in a 2009 discovery, and in Northamptonshire, England, a man from the third or fourth century was found buried facedown with his tongue replaced with a stone, according to an University of Arizona release.

About the Author