A year ago, archaeologists from the Nicolaus Copernicus University made a startling discovery during excavations at Pniu, near D?browa Che?mi?ska (Poland). They located the grave of a young woman whose body was doubly protected so that it would not rise from her grave.
The girl was buried with a triangular padlock tied to the big toe of her left foot and a downward-pointing sickle placed around her neck. The news spread like wildfire and she was quickly labeled as a ‘vampiress’. And it turns out that she was not the only one in the cemetery.
The same team of researchers, led by Dr. Dariusz Polinski, has continued to analyze the area in search of tombs located in the early medieval necropolis and the modern cemetery, probably Protestant (Lutheran and perhaps Mennonite), and has found the strange burial of a child between five and seven years old.
The little boy’s body was placed face down in the grave pit, an unprecedented event in the area, experts say. “This arrangement of the corpse may suggest that the deceased was feared and the ‘activity’ of him after death. For example, that he bit the living, ”says Polinski.
In the 17th century, which is when the child died, the inhabitants of this area of ??the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland, assumed that turning the face down would cause the deceased to bite the ground, so they already It would not pose a threat to people.
Curiously, only a portion of the little boy’s skeleton survived. And under the bones, the archaeologists discovered a triangular padlock, almost the same as the one that accompanied the remains of the ‘vampiress’ found in 2022. The analysis of the strata shows that the grave was removed, the grave was desecrated and the remains of the corpse, but it is not known when or what happened to them.
The unusual burial was located just five feet from grave No. 75, where a young woman with the sickle was buried. On the child’s grave, a disconcerting group of skeletons of several children was discovered, and even a fragment of the jaw of one of them was dyed green.
A similar greenish tinge was observed on the palate of the ‘vampire child’. The researchers believe that this pictorial plaque may have developed as a result of prolonged attempts to treat pain and fever with gold suspension therapy. “But maybe it’s a trace of some other practice. Maybe there was an object made of copper alloy in this person’s mouth,” Polinski says.
The Pniu necropolis stands out for its special character. It is not mentioned in written sources or on maps, something typical of cemeteries for people excluded and rejected from a certain community. These types of burial grounds were located outside the city walls, at crossroads, in pastures and vacant lots.
The team of experts has also managed to find the burial of a pregnant woman in whose womb the remains of the fetus were preserved. What intrigued the specialists, as detailed in a statement, was the burial pit was located in an unusual place. “Usually, graves are dug where it is relatively easy to do so, usually in sandy areas,” says Dariusz Polinski.
But in this case, the grave was in a very hard, compact stone structure. “It’s unbelievable that they went to so much trouble to bury her like this. Interestingly, after some time, another grave was dug in this place (during the process the skeleton of the pregnant woman was damaged, with her right arm missing), and what is very mysterious is that it turns out to be empty , there were no skeletal remains inside ”, he adds.
Now the researchers have moved to the laboratory with the idea of ??obtaining more information about their findings. “We are awaiting the results of the DNA tests of the young woman from grave number 75, which we believe will arrive in September. Maybe we can say something more about her eye color, her skin, her hair or possible genetic diseases, ”says Polinski.
