Female "Vampire" Discovered in Italy

According to the Associated Press, an archeological team in Venice has unearthed remains of a 16th century woman with a brick between her jaws. This is evidence, they say, that she was believed to be a vampire.

The presence of the brick is believed to be part of an ancient vampire killing ritual.

The skeleton was discovered on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, amid a pile of skeletons stored in a mass grave. The remains are believed to belong to plague victims. In 1576, an epidemic spread in the area. Although residents of the area did not know the exact cause of the disease, they believed the source was from vampires, hence the use of vampire-killing rituals such as shoving a brick in someone's mouth.

"Vampires don't exist," Said forensic archeologist Matteo Borrini. "But studies show that the people of the time believed they did."

According to Borrini, the remains are the first evidence of a vampire exorcism. In Medieval texts, the characteristics of decomposing bodies, such as pale skin and bloating, were signs of vampirism.

"These characteristics are all tied to the decomposition of bodies," Borrini said. "But they saw a fat, full of blood and a whole in his shroud, they would say 'This guy is alive, he's drinking blood and eating his shroud.'"

Oftentimes, the corpses of plague victims appeared to have blood seeping from their mouth, a supposed origin of the vampire myth.

To kill the undead, a stone or brick was shoved in the victim's mouth, in order to starve it to death. Later, the stake-in-the-heart method would be utilized in Central and Eastern Europe, which Bram Stoker would later record in his novel "Dracula."

"Such superstitions were a way for the terrified population to explain the waves of plague epidemics which killed millions during the Middle Ages," said Piero Manucci, an archeologist unaffiliated with Borrini's team, the "vampire killer" was likely a priest or gravedigger who came across the body.