The skull of "Vampire" found in medieval Italy

This is not a film one episode of blood-sucking vampire or a vampire, but Van Helsing seemed medieval trying to save us from the vampires do not use a sharp piece of wood, they use a brick.

Recently an anthropologist at Florence University named Matteo Borini find a female skull with bricks that plug in his mouth in a mass grave on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, near Venice, Italy. The cemetery was used to bury the victims of the Black Death that occurred in the year 1576, the outbreak of disease affecting Italy and claimed around 150,000 lives.

This remarkable discovery shows how medieval society have their own views about the superstitions involving blood-sucking vampire.

The shroud used to cover the face of the corpse generally become obsolete due to bacteria from the mouth of the corpse, and finally shows the teeth of corpses. However, this process is misunderstood by medieval society. This is indicated by the existence of ancient manuscripts medieval stating that the body regain life by eating the shroud and inhale the remnants of life from the other bodies until they get enough strength to rise again from the dead. Therefore, in the medieval vampire also known as "shroud-eaters"

"To kill the vampire, you must remove the shroud from its mouth and then put something that can not be eaten instead. Because it was the one who used bricks" Mr Borrini said. "There is a possibility of other bodies also have a brick like this in his mouth, but this is the first skull that we find in these conditions." He continued.

Vampire superstition has become part of the culture of the plague sweeping Europe when it stormed the whole continent. Ignorance about the natural stages of decomposition of the bodies may have sparked the spread of this myth. "It would be interpreted if the bricks are plugged in at the mouth of the corpse comes from the fear that in going to a vampire or just a precautionary measure in difficult times." Borrini said. Figure modern vampires we are familiar through Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, written in 1897.

However, widespread superstition generally also arise because of real events. Could the blood-sucking vampires really exist in the Middle Ages?