‘Vampire child’ with padlocked ankle dug up in 17th-century cemetery: ‘Feared during life’
By Samantha Ibrahim
August 7, 2023
Sink your teeth into this discovery.
Archaeologists have found the remains of a so-called “vampire child” dating to the 1600s in a Pień, Poland, cemetery.
The skeletal scraps were estimated to be from a child aged between 5 to 7. The remains were discovered lying face down with a triangular padlock attached to one of its feet.
Archaeologist Dariusz Poliński, from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus, gave some insight into his exploration and why the corpse was bonded to the lock.
He noted that the item placed under the foot “symbolizes the closing of a stage of life and is meant to protect against the return of the deceased, which was probably feared,” according to the Daily Mail.
“Such practices originated in folk beliefs and are sometimes described as anti-vampiric,” the excavator said.
Excavators from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus found a “vampire child” skeleton dating to the 17th century.
The child was 5 to 7 years old when it died.University of Nicolaus Copernicus
A padlock was found attached to the child.University of Nicolaus Copernicus
The rituals of the time period reportedly state that when a person was buried face down, the dead would “bite into the ground and not harm the living,” according to Poliński.
Padlocked, restrained female ‘vampire’ discovered in 17th-century graveyard
Thirty other internments were uncovered — and archaeologists believed that people who were “feared not only during life but also after death” were also entombed in the region.
Pieces of a green-stained jaw also were unearthed and may have originated from a copper coin put into the mouth of a dead child, one of three others found, researchers said.
The remains of a pregnant woman were additionally found, including a fetus that was “determined to be roughly 5 to 6 months old,” according to college representative Magdalena Zagrodzka.
“This is surprising because the bones of children of this age are poorly mineralized, so they are usually not preserved,” she explained.
The area where the possibly blood-sucking kiddie was acquired turns out to be the same 17th-century graveyard where a “vampire woman” was discovered by Poliński and his research crew in September 2022 — with a sickle seemingly restraining her neck and a padlock on the big toe of her left foot.
Researchers also uncovered remains seemingly restrained by a sickle.University of Nicolaus Copernicus
A green stain is seen on a set of teeth at the gravesite.
The remains date to the 1600s.University of Nicolaus Copernicus
The skeletal remains of three kids and a pregnant woman were also uncovered.University of Nicolaus Copernicus
“Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them and smashing them with a stone,” Poliński said.
He further divulged that the sickle was not laid flat; instead, it was put on her neck “in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.”
The padlocked toe symbolizes “the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning,” according to the historian.
By Samantha Ibrahim
August 7, 2023
Sink your teeth into this discovery.
Archaeologists have found the remains of a so-called “vampire child” dating to the 1600s in a Pień, Poland, cemetery.
The skeletal scraps were estimated to be from a child aged between 5 to 7. The remains were discovered lying face down with a triangular padlock attached to one of its feet.
Archaeologist Dariusz Poliński, from the University of Nicolaus Copernicus, gave some insight into his exploration and why the corpse was bonded to the lock.
He noted that the item placed under the foot “symbolizes the closing of a stage of life and is meant to protect against the return of the deceased, which was probably feared,” according to the Daily Mail.
“Such practices originated in folk beliefs and are sometimes described as anti-vampiric,” the excavator said.
The rituals of the time period reportedly state that when a person was buried face down, the dead would “bite into the ground and not harm the living,” according to Poliński.
Padlocked, restrained female ‘vampire’ discovered in 17th-century graveyard
Thirty other internments were uncovered — and archaeologists believed that people who were “feared not only during life but also after death” were also entombed in the region.
Pieces of a green-stained jaw also were unearthed and may have originated from a copper coin put into the mouth of a dead child, one of three others found, researchers said.
The remains of a pregnant woman were additionally found, including a fetus that was “determined to be roughly 5 to 6 months old,” according to college representative Magdalena Zagrodzka.
“This is surprising because the bones of children of this age are poorly mineralized, so they are usually not preserved,” she explained.
The area where the possibly blood-sucking kiddie was acquired turns out to be the same 17th-century graveyard where a “vampire woman” was discovered by Poliński and his research crew in September 2022 — with a sickle seemingly restraining her neck and a padlock on the big toe of her left foot.
“Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them and smashing them with a stone,” Poliński said.
He further divulged that the sickle was not laid flat; instead, it was put on her neck “in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.”
The padlocked toe symbolizes “the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning,” according to the historian.
‘Vampire’ grave shows 17th-century fear of women who ‘didn’t fit in’
By Adela Suliman
The Washington Post
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The remains of a female “vampire” with a sickle across her throat are seen on Aug. 30 after they were unearthed at an archaeological site in a 17th-century cemetery in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
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Visible traces of a pillow can be seen under the remains of a female “vampire” with a sickle across her throat in Bydgoszcz, Poland. (Courtesy of Mirosław Blicharski)
Despite the 17th-century medical community’s relative lack of scientific knowledge about communicable diseases or mental health, the burials were performed with a great degree of “pragmatism” to prevent the dead from rising from the grave, Abbott said. “Coming back as a vampire was a fate worse than death.”
Accusations of vampirism were common across Europe at the time, especially in what are now Serbia, Romania, Greece and Italy, she said. The church and other authorities were “systematic” in investigating and exhuming bodies and hunting for evidence of vampirism, which could include a lack of decomposition, red cheeks, blood in the mouth or swollen corpses.
“In some respects, these were very superstitious beliefs,” but the investigative methods “were very scientific,” Abbott said.
The myth of vampires has evolved over the centuries; some historians trace their origins back to biblical references to Lilith, an apparently demonic wife of Adam who preyed on the weak and young. Others cite the ancient Greek myth of Lamia, a blood-lusting daemon who also fed off children. The stories are common across the world, sliding on a scale between zombies and transformative bats, but they generally have some elements in common, experts say, such as an association with blood, feasting on the living and being contagious.
![]()
A padlock was attached to the big toe on the left foot of the remains of a female “vampire” unearthed in Poland. (Courtesy of Mirosław Blicharski)
Vampires have long fascinated the modern imagination, from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” to the television hit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the “Twilight” romance novels and movies and the popular children’s animation “Hotel Transylvania.”
“We are naturally drawn to dark stories,” Briggs-Miller told The Post, explaining the centuries-old interest in vampires.
For Abbott, our fascination has transformed over time. “As we shift and change and our fears change, vampires often come to embody different things,” she said. Originally linked to religion and fear, they are now given a “more sympathetic” treatment representing “groups that have been oppressed,” and we wish them happy endings rather than death. “We like them,” she added.
They also allow the living to ponder the “perennial question” of life after death, said Abbott, stoking a morbid curiosity that continues to draw in readers, historians and the public — not just on Halloween.
But European historian and professor Martyn Rady told The Post on Wednesday that “there is nothing at all odd in this discovery.” The use of a sickle across the neck was “pretty tame,” he added.
“This is not a vampire, but a revenant. All cultures have a belief in the ‘undead,’ ” he explained, describing them generally as “people that have led violent lives or died violently or have not been buried with the proper funeral rites.”
In some parts of Europe, “bodies may be cut in two down the middle, or the head sliced off, or a stake driven through the corpse to pin it down,” he continued. “In Chinese accounts, one way to keep the corpse immobile is to bury it with rice, since the undead like nothing better than to count rice grains,” he said. Similar accounts have been found in Europe, with seeds being sprinkled inside graves for suspected vampires to count until the sun comes up.
“There is, incidentally, nothing odd in the revenant being a woman,” Rady said of the Polish case. “Quite why the locals feared the woman might become undead is unknown: possibly, something as simple as dying violently by falling off a cart.”
September 7, 2022
By Adela Suliman is a breaking-news reporter in The Washington Post's London hub. Twitter
(Courtesy of Mirosław Blicharski)
A sharp sickle was placed across her neck, ready to decapitate her should she jolt awake after death, and a padlock was put around her big toe.
That’s what scientists found when they excavated the corpse of a woman they believe was suspected of being a vampire in 17th-century Poland.
The unnamed woman — thought to be young and of a high social class, given that she was buried in a silk scarf — was probably accused of being supernatural because she stood out, experts said. A large protruding tooth may provide some clues.
A professor from Poland’s Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun said burials involving a sickle are extremely unusual. Archaeologists from the university made the discovery in the southern village of Pien in the Eastern European nation last month and published their findings this week.
“Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them and smashing them with a stone,” Dariusz Polinski, who led the research team, told The Washington Post. Instead, in this case, a sharp scythe is “not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.”
The woman’s exhumed remains are now being studied by Polinski’s team.
Her burial reveals “paranoia” and “fear” around vampires — and the “gender politics” at the time, Stacey Abbott, author of “Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century,” told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Charges of being vampires were often made against people who “didn’t fit in,” Abbott said. “Anxiety about vampires came from people being different,” as was often the case in witchcraft accusations, she added.
The woman may have been singled out for her gender, a physical deformity or any social anomaly considered “immoral,” Abbott said, as people sought “a supernatural explanation” for those they perceived as outcasts.
It is not unusual for “vampiric graves” to be found on roadsides or crossroads, said Bethan Briggs-Miller, a British folklorist and paranormal historian. This is because the deceased were not permitted to be buried close to others or in consecrated ground and cemeteries. The suspected individuals would often be buried with chains or multiple stakes driven through their bodies. Others found in such graves may have died by suicide.
The fear was that they could “have wandered the earth and risen from the grave,” she said.
Women were “very susceptible” to retaliation for any kind of accusation or anomaly — from refusing to marry, having a miscarriage or even not menstruating, said Briggs-Miller, co-host of the “Eerie Essex” podcast. That her clothes indicate a high social status proves that such accusations of vampirism “affected women from all stations,” she said. It was “all part of this demonizing of women that took place for a long time.”
“If you stood out in any way, similar to the witch trials, to be slightly different created the same sort of hysteria,” she continued. “It would have been a case of accuse first, otherwise you’d be accused yourself.”
A sharp sickle was placed across her neck, ready to decapitate her should she jolt awake after death, and a padlock was put around her big toe.
That’s what scientists found when they excavated the corpse of a woman they believe was suspected of being a vampire in 17th-century Poland.
The unnamed woman — thought to be young and of a high social class, given that she was buried in a silk scarf — was probably accused of being supernatural because she stood out, experts said. A large protruding tooth may provide some clues.
A professor from Poland’s Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun said burials involving a sickle are extremely unusual. Archaeologists from the university made the discovery in the southern village of Pien in the Eastern European nation last month and published their findings this week.
“Ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them and smashing them with a stone,” Dariusz Polinski, who led the research team, told The Washington Post. Instead, in this case, a sharp scythe is “not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up, most likely the head would have been cut off or injured.”
The woman’s exhumed remains are now being studied by Polinski’s team.
Her burial reveals “paranoia” and “fear” around vampires — and the “gender politics” at the time, Stacey Abbott, author of “Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century,” told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Charges of being vampires were often made against people who “didn’t fit in,” Abbott said. “Anxiety about vampires came from people being different,” as was often the case in witchcraft accusations, she added.
The woman may have been singled out for her gender, a physical deformity or any social anomaly considered “immoral,” Abbott said, as people sought “a supernatural explanation” for those they perceived as outcasts.
It is not unusual for “vampiric graves” to be found on roadsides or crossroads, said Bethan Briggs-Miller, a British folklorist and paranormal historian. This is because the deceased were not permitted to be buried close to others or in consecrated ground and cemeteries. The suspected individuals would often be buried with chains or multiple stakes driven through their bodies. Others found in such graves may have died by suicide.
The fear was that they could “have wandered the earth and risen from the grave,” she said.
Women were “very susceptible” to retaliation for any kind of accusation or anomaly — from refusing to marry, having a miscarriage or even not menstruating, said Briggs-Miller, co-host of the “Eerie Essex” podcast. That her clothes indicate a high social status proves that such accusations of vampirism “affected women from all stations,” she said. It was “all part of this demonizing of women that took place for a long time.”
“If you stood out in any way, similar to the witch trials, to be slightly different created the same sort of hysteria,” she continued. “It would have been a case of accuse first, otherwise you’d be accused yourself.”
Despite the 17th-century medical community’s relative lack of scientific knowledge about communicable diseases or mental health, the burials were performed with a great degree of “pragmatism” to prevent the dead from rising from the grave, Abbott said. “Coming back as a vampire was a fate worse than death.”
Accusations of vampirism were common across Europe at the time, especially in what are now Serbia, Romania, Greece and Italy, she said. The church and other authorities were “systematic” in investigating and exhuming bodies and hunting for evidence of vampirism, which could include a lack of decomposition, red cheeks, blood in the mouth or swollen corpses.
“In some respects, these were very superstitious beliefs,” but the investigative methods “were very scientific,” Abbott said.
The myth of vampires has evolved over the centuries; some historians trace their origins back to biblical references to Lilith, an apparently demonic wife of Adam who preyed on the weak and young. Others cite the ancient Greek myth of Lamia, a blood-lusting daemon who also fed off children. The stories are common across the world, sliding on a scale between zombies and transformative bats, but they generally have some elements in common, experts say, such as an association with blood, feasting on the living and being contagious.
Vampires have long fascinated the modern imagination, from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” to the television hit “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the “Twilight” romance novels and movies and the popular children’s animation “Hotel Transylvania.”
“We are naturally drawn to dark stories,” Briggs-Miller told The Post, explaining the centuries-old interest in vampires.
For Abbott, our fascination has transformed over time. “As we shift and change and our fears change, vampires often come to embody different things,” she said. Originally linked to religion and fear, they are now given a “more sympathetic” treatment representing “groups that have been oppressed,” and we wish them happy endings rather than death. “We like them,” she added.
They also allow the living to ponder the “perennial question” of life after death, said Abbott, stoking a morbid curiosity that continues to draw in readers, historians and the public — not just on Halloween.
But European historian and professor Martyn Rady told The Post on Wednesday that “there is nothing at all odd in this discovery.” The use of a sickle across the neck was “pretty tame,” he added.
“This is not a vampire, but a revenant. All cultures have a belief in the ‘undead,’ ” he explained, describing them generally as “people that have led violent lives or died violently or have not been buried with the proper funeral rites.”
In some parts of Europe, “bodies may be cut in two down the middle, or the head sliced off, or a stake driven through the corpse to pin it down,” he continued. “In Chinese accounts, one way to keep the corpse immobile is to bury it with rice, since the undead like nothing better than to count rice grains,” he said. Similar accounts have been found in Europe, with seeds being sprinkled inside graves for suspected vampires to count until the sun comes up.
“There is, incidentally, nothing odd in the revenant being a woman,” Rady said of the Polish case. “Quite why the locals feared the woman might become undead is unknown: possibly, something as simple as dying violently by falling off a cart.”
September 7, 2022
By Adela Suliman is a breaking-news reporter in The Washington Post's London hub. Twitter
Headless ‘vampire’ remains discovered in 1800s Polish mass grave site
By Brooke Kato
June 10, 2023
Archeologists found the remains of approximately 450 people in Luzino, Poland.
“It was believed that if a member of the deceased’s family was dying shortly after the funeral, he or she could be a vampire,” he added. “Therefore, after burial, the grave was dug up and the deceased’s head was cut off, which was then placed in the legs.”
Stromski told The Post that 20-30% of the recently discovered bodies had bricks next to their head, arms and legs. A coin was placed in each mouth, with one dating back to 1846.
The coin apparently sealed in the person’s soul and gave them currency to travel to the afterlife.
By Brooke Kato
June 10, 2023
Archeologists found the remains of approximately 450 people in Luzino, Poland.
Gmina Luzino/Luzino
A bone-chilling mass graveyard containing headless skeletons and “anti-vampire” items has been unearthed in northern Poland amid road construction.
Workers in the Kashubian village of Luzino stumbled upon the burial ground while widening Kościelna Street by an 18th century church, Poland’s The First News reports.
Many of the 450 bodies appeared to have been exhumed and re-buried, with experts believing superstitious family members dug up their loved ones and decapitated them to end the “vampire curse.”
Several of the deceased had a skull between their legs and a coin in their mouth — a sign of the anti-vampire rituals common in the 19th century.
“We discovered examples of belief in the dead returning from the grave, which could only be stopped by decapitation,” Maciej Stromski, who is leading the excavation, told Nadmorski24.pl this week.
A bone-chilling mass graveyard containing headless skeletons and “anti-vampire” items has been unearthed in northern Poland amid road construction.
Workers in the Kashubian village of Luzino stumbled upon the burial ground while widening Kościelna Street by an 18th century church, Poland’s The First News reports.
Many of the 450 bodies appeared to have been exhumed and re-buried, with experts believing superstitious family members dug up their loved ones and decapitated them to end the “vampire curse.”
Several of the deceased had a skull between their legs and a coin in their mouth — a sign of the anti-vampire rituals common in the 19th century.
“We discovered examples of belief in the dead returning from the grave, which could only be stopped by decapitation,” Maciej Stromski, who is leading the excavation, told Nadmorski24.pl this week.
Decapitation was once thought to ward off the emergence of vampires
Researchers discovered loose bones in three ossuaries.
“It was believed that if a member of the deceased’s family was dying shortly after the funeral, he or she could be a vampire,” he added. “Therefore, after burial, the grave was dug up and the deceased’s head was cut off, which was then placed in the legs.”
Stromski told The Post that 20-30% of the recently discovered bodies had bricks next to their head, arms and legs. A coin was placed in each mouth, with one dating back to 1846.
The coin apparently sealed in the person’s soul and gave them currency to travel to the afterlife.
The bodies appeared to be decapitated with a skull placed between their legs.
It’s thought that the people of the village were terrified of the deceased
coming back from the dead as vampires.
The deceased had a skull between their legs and a coin in their mouths,
a sign of the anti-vampire rituals common in the 19th century.
Gmina Luzino/Luzino
“We also discovered an example of a woman after decapitation,” Stromski continued. “The skull of a child was laid on her bosom.”
First News reports the church was built at the beginning of the 18th century and expanded after 1945.
At some point, its old graves were liquidated and large quantities of bones were deposited in ossuaries.
Stromski noted his team discovered loose bones in three ossuaries.
“We also discovered an example of a woman after decapitation,” Stromski continued. “The skull of a child was laid on her bosom.”
First News reports the church was built at the beginning of the 18th century and expanded after 1945.
At some point, its old graves were liquidated and large quantities of bones were deposited in ossuaries.
Stromski noted his team discovered loose bones in three ossuaries.
“We also discovered an example of a woman after decapitation,”
Stromski added. “The skull of a child was laid on her bosom.”
i
The gravesite was unearthed during construction next to the town’s church.
Gmina Luzino/Luzino
A Luzino community Facebook page noted in March that construction was underway by the church, with renovations expected to last into September.
Just last year, researchers in Pień, Poland, reported discovering the remains of a female “vampire” who had been buried with a sickle across her neck and a padlock on the big toe of her left foot to prevent her return from the dead.
A Luzino community Facebook page noted in March that construction was underway by the church, with renovations expected to last into September.
Just last year, researchers in Pień, Poland, reported discovering the remains of a female “vampire” who had been buried with a sickle across her neck and a padlock on the big toe of her left foot to prevent her return from the dead.
PHOTO'S Maciej Stromsk
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