Polish 'vampire' found buried with sickle over throat in case she rose from the dead

Archaeologists in Poland found the remains of a supposed female “vampire” buried with a sickle over her throat to keep her from leaving the grave.

“The sickle was 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,” Professor Dariusz Poliński from the Nicholas Copernicus University explained to Metro.co.uk.

The spooky repose was found at an archaeological dig at a 17th century medieval cemetery in Pien, a village in southeast Poland.

The deceased woman’s age is unknown but a silk cap on her head indicated she may have been of high status.

Other unique features were a single protruding tooth and a padlock around one of her toes, which Poliński said may have symbolized “the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning.”

Stories about vampires and other supernatural phenomena date as far back as the 11th century. Many at the time believed those who died of infectious diseases, like cholera, might claw their way up out of the ground as something beyond human.

“People of the post-medieval period did not understand how disease was spread, and rather than a scientific explanation for these epidemics, cholera and the deaths that resulted from it were explained by the supernatural – in this case, vampires,” Dr. Lesley Gregoricka, from the University of South Alabama, told Metro.

Similar remains have been found in the country. In 2014, bodies of other supposed “vampires” were found in another 400-year-old Polish graveyard with sickles around their necks or weighed down with rocks to ensure the dead stayed dead.

Poliński noted these were just two methods that superstitious medieval peasants secured corpses in the earth.

“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,” he said.