***The Vampir Metrou***(imported post) Vampire burials and tuberculosis: Vampires have long been a part of world mythology, and a grave excavated in 1990 has uncovered new proof on just how the myth of the vampire came to spread throughout cities and small towns indiscriminately. Well after the fear of witches had come and gone in towns throughout New England, a new fear gripped citizens: the fear of the vampire. Children playing in a gravel mine in 1990 stumbled across bones that had worked their way to the surface, and local authorities started to excavate the area. They found human remains dating to the early 1800s, with one of the skeletons in particular standing out. Dubbed “JB” for initials found on the lid of the coffin, the skeleton had been beheaded and the head placed rather ceremoniously on his lap. It’s long been believed that beheading a vampire will slow the creature down, as it can’t go hunting until it finds its head. The beheading along with other damage to the skeleton happened about five years after he had originally been buried, which is consistent with the idea that he was dug up and mutilated to stop preying on villagers who fell sick after his death. Further research tied together other burial sites across New England that had been similarly desecrated, and it was all during a period that coincided with an outbreak of tuberculosis. A medical exam of JB confirmed that he had died of tuberculosis, which explained why he had been targeted as a vampire. He was most likely one of the first victims of an outbreak, and remembered as slowly growing paler and paler, wasting away before he died. Symptoms of tuberculosis, sunken eyes, pale skin and coughing blood are eerily similar to the identifying characteristics of a vampire; once others started falling ill with the same sickness, it’s absolutely reasonable that desperate and superstitious villagers would think of the earliest victims as monsters hunting their friends, family, and neighbors.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 14:36:11 +0000
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