Archaeologists discover ‘anti-vampire’ burial of a child dating back to 13th century

CHEŁM, Poland (TMX/Gray News) – Archeologists in Poland have reported a “unique” discovery near the grounds of a historic cathedral: an “anti-vampire” burial of a child dating to the 13th century.

The Lublin Region Conservator of Monuments shared images on Facebook last week showing the skeletal remains of two children.

The skeletons were found by workers removing tree roots to repair a wall at a former bishop’s gardens on a hill called Góra Chełmska in the city of Chełm.

The site of the remains was not associated with any known cemeteries in the area.

One of the two children “had the characteristics of an anti-vampire burial,” officials said.

Stanisława Gołuba, the archeologist leading the research, noted the child’s head had been separated from the body and was arranged face-down, and stones were placed atop the remains.

The removal of heads and placing stones on bodies were just some of the methods used at the time to prevent a deceased person or “demonic entity” from rising from the grave, according to Gołuba.

The remains were buried without coffins, arranged on an east-west line with their skulls to the west. Stratigraphy and ceramics date the grave to the Early Middle Ages in the 13th century.

Both skeletons were removed from the graves for analysis.

Archeologists have uncovered similar “anti-vampire” burial sites in Poland, suggesting people in the Middle Ages often feared supernatural undead returning from the grave.

In 2022, researchers discovered a gravesite in the village of Pień, where the remains of a woman were found with a padlock on her foot and a sickle across her neck. The padlock was believed to tether the remains to the grave, while the sickle was believed to decapitate a corpse that tried to rise from the grave.

Anti-vampire burial practices persisted in Poland and became more common in the 17th century.

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