'Vampire' skeletons unearthed in Bulgaria

[Samstwitch]

'Vampire' skeletons unearthed in Bulgaria

June 6, 2012 - ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Bulgaria unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with iron rods to keep them from turning into vampires, the head of the history museum said today.

According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried.

"These two skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century," national history museum chief Bozhidar Dimitrov said after the recent find in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.

People believed the rod also would pin the dead into their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorizing the living, the historian explained.

The practice was common, Dimitrov added, saying that some 100 similar burials already had been found in Bulgaria.

...Archaeologist Petar Balabanov, who in 2004 unearthed six nailed-down skeletons at a site near the eastern town of Debelt, said the pagan rite also was practiced in neighboring Serbia and other Balkan countries.

Vampire legends are widespread across the Balkans. The most famous is that of Romanian count Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula, who staked his war enemies and drank their blood
SOURCE

 

[Mr.Spiridakos]

Really interesting...

 

[Justinian]

The real Vlad Tepest Dracul was and is a hero in Romania still today. Been there. Most dracula legends spur from him due to him impaling his enemies. Which the process was to drive a large wooden, pointed pole up your behind and out your mouth or some other point on your upper body. From what I've found and read, the legends of driving a stake through the heart was a reverse of what he did. Instead of him driving it through his victims, they say that you need to do this to the vampire to stop them. When if you follow what i said and believe he was the vampire, he was driving stakes through HIS victims.. so thats where the myth meets reality. Also I just posted this in another thread.. but I'll go here again.

Vlad Tepest was largely responsible for all modern vampire legends due to one famous wood carving of him where he's eating lunch in the foreground with thousands of enemies impaled behind him. This was originally to show his greatness of how relaxed he was even after this battle where after overwhelming odds, he still defeated the Sultan's army, and was now sitting down to relax and have a meal. His victory meal if you will and the background showing his triumph. This was misconstrued to say that he was eating these men and drinking their blood. And some say that they were impaled like this to drain their blood. The real Vlad if you are a Christian should be an inspiration to devotion to your faith if you ask me. His empire was the front lines against the Ottoman Empire that was trying to expand into Christian Europe. Nobody in Christiandom would help Vlad, but even despite all odds, he prevailed. He reigned so much terror on the Turks that they were scared to come fight him. I'm sure Sulemein claimed some generic.. "we don't really need this land" speech to his own people.. but when you send 50K troops against 20K troops and Vlad impales all 50K of your men.. yeah.. I'd run too. So when all the other Christian kingdoms were busy fighting each other and forming crusades.. Vlad was the one that basically saved Christianity in my mind. Because if the Turks had been let loose on Europe, it's hard to tell what might have happened... Interesting tid bit as well was that Vlad actually went into exile when he was younger and was living under the tuetelage of Sulemein and so this he knew how to manipulate, loot, plunder, and torture like a Turk, not like a European. This is just another case of the student surpassing the master.