Vampires in real life?

Figure 1: A vampire emerges from his coffin in a scene from "Curse of the Blood Ghouls", 1962 (Hulton Archive, Getty Images). Source

     Lately I’ve been hearing people talking about “vampire graves”, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I went into Google to finally find out for myself what exactly this term meant. The Telegraph (2013) describes a “vampire burial” in Britain dating back to 550-700AD. The individual had metal spikes through the shoulders, heart and ankles. ABC News (2012) describes two graves found in the Black Sea town in Bulgaria, where each skeleton had an iron rod pinned into the chest (Figure 2). This makes me think about what Dr. McGurie said in class about how there are instances where buried bodies are made to be trapped either with spears crisscrossing over top of them, being buried face down, or staked down. People often did this because they were afraid of the dead coming back to life and their spirit sticking around to haunt them and make bad things happen. This particular practice may have also been reserved for social outcasts or “bad men” such as criminals, traitors or disrupters of the peace.

Figure 2: In this sunday, June 3, 2012 photo showing a piece of iron next to skeleton dated back in the Middle Ages. (AP). Source

     So, why term these burials as “vampire burials”? Why not just call them “deviant burials” as that’s what they are? Is this the author’s way of grabbing peoples attention so that they the audience reads their article? Are they utilizing the popularity of vampirism in our culture today for the sake of gaining more readers? It would appear so, as stated by Dimitrov in the ABC News article, putting a stake in the chest was a common practice of the Middle Ages and he does not understand why these burials are getting so much attention. We should not be quick to apply cultural terms of today on remains of the past; it alters how we view the remains and can impose our own modern ideas onto the remains that may not be true.