Venecian Vampire

Ever since I was a little girl, I have had a weird fascination with .... vampires. Although I have not read every single book known to man written about them, or even movies made about them, I still am drawn to them. I remember seeing a documentary about Dracula when I was little; I remember sitting in awe, mistified by the concept and the possible facts leading up to their potential existence. The idea of vampires and what they were all about captured my attention so intensly, that my normal ADD self sat completely still.  

And so I sit here today, reading my daily (and I do mean daily) CNN dose of reality, when I come across a new forensic find - a perfectly preserved female skull, with a brick lodged into her mouth. 

What fascinates me the most, is that anthropologist have said that this skull( from the 16th century Venice) is the classic example of how actual burials of believed "vampires" was executed.  The lodging of the brick in the mouth was to prevent said vampires from feasting on any more victims. 

When I imagine how life would have been like in the 16th century, in gothic Venice, I automatically get a sense of darkness,  mysterious dark shadows running quickly along the walls of buildings, diving effortlessly into the canals, the City of Water and into the depths of what makes Venice so spectacular now.   

I can imagine that during that time, when the "Black Death" occured, the heavily Roman Catholic region was in shambles trying to figure out why God would kill off a third of their people and came up with a simple answer: He didn't and wouldn't.  The culprit? Vampires. And so the "common" practic of stopping a vampire from feasting on the plague victims began - and we are now able to actually see evidence of such practices. Simply amazing.