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I was looking around at some blogs, and I came across this bit of news and wanted to share:

Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female “vampire” in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.

Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death.

“This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire,” Mr Borrini said.

“This helps … authenticate how the myth of vampires was born.”

The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave from the Venetian plague of 1576 – in which the artist Titian died – on Lazzaretto Nuovo, which lies around three kilometres north-east of Venice and was used as a sanatorium for plague sufferers.

If you want to read the rest of the post, you can go here: Vampires are still around?

Tags: borrini, female vampire, lazzaretto nuovo, plague, remains, remains female, vampire, vampires, venetian plague, venice, venice buried, venice lagoon