Archaeologists from US universities, in collaboration with Italian archaeologists, have unearthed the remains of a 10-year-old child buried with a stone in his mouth in an ancient Roman cemetery.
In ancient times, people suspected of vampirism were buried in this way.
The child's skull was fractured and may have been killed, but archaeologists believe that he most likely died from malaria, since during the years of the alleged burial in these places there was a massive malaria epidemic.
The remains were excavated in the so-called "Cemetery of Babies" (La Necropoli dei Bambini), a special children's cemetery from the mid-5th century AD in the Umbria region of the commune of Lugnano in Teverina.
The bodies of many young victims of malaria were buried at the site of an abandoned Roman villa that was originally built at the end of the first century BC. Basically, newborn babies or miscarriages were buried here, but sometimes archaeologists came across older children, like a 3-year-old girl or this 10-year-old vampire child, whose gender has not yet been established.
Earlier, archaeologists unearthed about 50 children's burials in this cemetery.
According to the researchers, the child was not necessarily considered a vampire. They have a version that a stone was put in his mouth so that he did not rise from the dead and infect other people with malaria, which in those centuries was considered a dangerous and mysterious disease.
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However, the version with the "vampire" may turn out to be true, because in this cemetery signs were found that people believed in black magic and used witchcraft. Earlier, in other graves, archaeologists dug up raven claws, toad bones, as well as bronze cauldrons filled with ash and remains of burnt puppies next to the baby's bones. The animals were probably sacrificed for something.
And the bones of the upper body of the 3-year-old girl mentioned above were specially crushed by heavy stones to the ground. Probably someone did not want her to rise from the dead and rise from the grave.
The found 10-year-old child found an abscess on his teeth, which could be a side effect of malaria. Until the child's DNA has been studied, this is considered one of the versions.
The child lay in the grave on his left side between two thin hewn slabs, which were then used as roofs. His mouth was opened as wide as possible on purpose to place a stone there. There were even teeth marks on the stone.
Many of the remains of the "vampires" found earlier in Europe had a similar stone in their mouths. They also sometimes had iron stakes driven into their ribcages to strike the heart. In 2014, such a skeleton with a stake in the heart was found in Bulgaria.
In 2009, archaeologists found in Venice the grave of a "vampire" woman with a brick in her mouth, and in 2017, in England, they found a grave from 4 or 3 centuries AD with the remains of a man. The skeleton lay with its back up, and a stone was clamped in its jaws.
But archaeologists have found the grave of a child-"vampire" for the first time and this is one of the most unusual archaeological finds of recent years.