The 400-year-old skeleton of a toddler was uncovered face-down with an iron handcuff on its foot by a team of Polish archaeologists. According to the experts, the peculiar burial was intended to stop the child from returning from the dead and haunting the living. The kid, who was between the ages of 5 and 7 when she passed away, was interred at a village cemetery in Pie, close to the northern city of Bydgoszcz, in the 17th century. The cemetery served as a final resting place for “abandoned souls” and the impoverished who could not afford a decent burial in a parish. Could this be a scientifically proven vampire child?
Is This Undead or a Myth?
The child’s bone was discovered close to another strange burial, that of a woman who had a sickle placed over her neck and a padlock placed on her foot. There has been a news investigation carried out by Live Science. She was also seen as a possible revenant or other undead threat to the living. The same group of archaeologists from Toru’s Nicolaus Copernicus University discovered her the year before.
According to team leader Dariusz Poliski, “the padlock shows people were afraid of this child after its death.” Probably the only instance of such a child burial in Europe, he continued, is this one. In the same cemetery, the researchers also discovered a third padlock, but no entire skeleton was close. They believe that the corpse was locked up with a padlock before it was disturbed by wildlife or grave robbers.
The peasants preferred to rest in a church’s sacred grounds rather than the Pie cemetery, so they rarely interred their dead there. However, the cost of the graveyard burial meant that only those with the means could afford it. The others were forced to choose a different location.
Even if they had money, it appears that “abandoned souls” were buried in this smaller cemetery far from the church. For instance, affluent bones of another woman were discovered earlier with a sickle and a padlock; she had gold threads in her garments and gold specks on her head, indicating that she had taken a gold-containing treatment. The archaeologists also reported that she was quite unwell.
Is the Discovery Proved to Be A Vampire Child?
The team is awaiting the results of the DNA testing done on both skeletons, which could provide more information about the individuals and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. They also want to know if the child was a boy or a girl. According to the archaeologists, live people were particularly afraid of dead children because they believed they might reappear as ghosts. If the child had passed away unexpectedly or in a strange way, this fear would have been even more intense. The name “vampire” is inaccurate for these burials, the researchers further explained, because it was not in use at the time. Later, as a result of the influence of literature and mythology, the contemporary idea of vampires arose.
Conclusion
The team will continue digging in Pień next year after finding roughly 100 burials so far. Other children’s bones have also been discovered there, but none of them were interred in the same manner as this possibly vampire child. One child’s jaw was stained green, indicating that it may have been buried with a copper coin in its mouth at the time.
