Scullball

Of the 52 skeletons discovered in the fourth-century A.D. Roman cemetery discovered in the village of Great Whelnetham in Suffolk, England, 17 had been decapitated and the heads were placed between their owner's legs or feet. Why? Well... 

When archaeologists opened medieval graves at a highway construction site near Gliwice, Poland, they came across skeletal remains of humans whose severed heads rested upon their legs...

Apparently this is an ancient Slavic burial practice for disposing of suspected vampires, in hopes that decapitated individuals wouldn't be able to rise from their tombs...Practiced by the Western Slavs mainly...

Now the article about the English Vampire burials says that: "The decapitations might be related to pagan belief systems that held that spirits need to be released for the afterlife or even that the head was a container of the soul."

Which is why the head was cut off...The vampire was "the undead", the body which soul never left...So kind of linked...Otherwise all the dead would have been decapitated, right?

So the question is who were the people buried following Western Slavic vampire burial rituals in the late Roman cemetery in England? Or how did Medieval Western Slavs got to practice Roman Vampire burial rituals???

By the way you do know that Vampire is a Serbian word? 

Few articles related to the Serbian (Slavic) vampire lore: Vampires, Tombstones, Stake, Enemy of demons

Tombstones

Ancient tombstones on Morine, Bosnia

Are tombstones placed on top of the dead to "bind their souls" and stop them from wandering around and harming the living? 

Slavs used to place stones in, on and around graves to prevent the dead from rising up and escaping the body as a spirit and torment the living.

Sometimes the stones were placed in the person's mouth or on top of his body to "weigh his soul down".

Northwestern Poland, cemetery in the town of Kamien Pomorski. A person buried in one of the graves was pierced with a stake and a stone was placed in his mouth. Both ritual acts were performed to stop the dead from rising.

At Celakovice, about 30 kilometers north of Prague in the Czech Republic, fourteen "vampire" graves have been excavated, each with metal spikes driven through their bodies or heavy stones placed upon them. The graves are believed to date from the eleventh or twelfth century...

In three seventeenth-eighteenth century "vampire" graves were excavated at the cemetery in Drawsko, Poland. Two people were buried with iron sickles placed around their necks...

Whilst the third, a younger adult, was buried with the body tied up and stones put on his throat.

In Vrasta, Bulgaria a medieval "vampire" burial site was found during excavations of an ancient fortress. An elderly man was buried with a processed white stone deliberately placed over his heart. His feet had also been tied together.

That stones were used as soul, spirit anchors can be seen from the fact that they are used with or instead of stakes (wooden originally, metal later) which are the best known anti "vampire" weapon. Stakes were driven through bodies of suspected "vampires" to fix them to the ground and stop them from rising. There are reports that in the past, pagan Slavs marked every grave with a stake. And in some parts of Serbia where this custom survived until very recently, stakes were eventually replaced with tall slim standing stones, like these ones from Barajevo near Belgrade

That this was not just Slavic custom, can be seen from the fact that people buried with stones in their mouths were also in other parts of Europe. 

In Taverina, Italy, at "La Necropoli dei Bambini" or the Cemetery of Children, a 400 AD burial site where many babies and small children who died from malaria were buried, a 10-year-old child was buried with a stone in its mouth, which archaeologists believe was done to prevent it rising again from the dead.

During the survey of medieval churches in County Roscommon, Ireland, archaeologists discovered more than 120 skeletons dated to 7th-14th c. Two of them had stones wedged into their mouths "to stop their souls from escaping"

In the 3rd of 4th century AD in a farming community near the river Nene, in what’s now Stanwick, England, a man was buried face down, with a stone in his mouth where his tongue should be.

How old is this custom? I have no idea really. Where does it originate? Again, I don't know. But probably Balkans. Why? Have a look at this:

Nea Nikomedeia, Middle Neolithic (5500 - 3500 BC), Greece. Person buried with a stone in their mouth.

Another "vampire" burial? Most likely. I don't think this is a random thing. Showing a stone into the mouth of a dead person during his (hers) burial is a deliberate ritual act, rarely performed, based on a definite strong belief in that stone serving some very important purpose.

Anyone knows of any similar burials from Bronze Age and Iron Age Balkans? Or anywhere else in the world? Is it possible that this custom and this belief survived through all these millenniums? It wouldn't be the first...

Another more recent variant of this ritual, is placing piece of brick into deceased mouth instead of rock.

In Plovdiv, Bulgaria, skeleton was found facing westwards, with a brick fragment placed in its mouth, and a clay roofing tile over the head. The skeleton is one of 80 found in a necropolis in the old town part of Plovdiv, tentatively dated from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries...

On the small Italian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon, while excavating graves of plague victims buried in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, archaeologists discovered what they believe to be the remains of a female "vampire". The skull of a mature female was found with a brick placed in her mouth. According to the local folk tradition, brick or stone placed between the jaws was said to prevent a vampire from feeding on victims of the plague.

More about "vampire burials" can be found in this great article:

"Time to Slay Vampire Burials? The Archaeological and Historical Evidence for Vampires in Europe" by David Barrowclough

This use of brick fragments instead of stones in ritual tying down of the ghosts, shows that the reason why stones were used for this purpose was by then forgotten.

The use of rocks for tying ghosts down was used because people in the Balkans believed that stones and rocks absorb and trap spirits.

Remember the Serbian ritual trapping of someone's shadow into the stone foundations of a new house, in order to form a "protective spirit" which would watch over the house and its inhabitants?

Until the first person dies in the house and his spirit takes over the job of the protective spirit...

There are records of ritual building in of people into the foundations of important building such as fortresses and bridges for the same purpose. I talked about this in my post "New house"

These spirits were tied into the stone from which the building was built...

How archaic this belief that stones and rocks absorb and trap spirits is, can be seen from these two customs from the Balkans:

In Kosovo, when Albanians had to cut a particularly "powerful" tree, they used to place a pebble on the stump. Probably to stop the tree spirit from leaving the stump and punishing them for their crime...

In Serbia, when a particularly potent medicinal plant needed to be collected,  any stone found nearby was thrown in the air and the plant had to be pulled out before the stone fell on the ground or the plant spirit, which gave the plant its medicinal properties, would leave the plant for the stone, and the plant would be useless...

Here it was plant spirits, which were trapped by the rocks. So it seems that people in the Balkans believed that any spirit could be captured and preserved in the rock.

This is really cool and explains why for instance hearth, doorstep and house corners were by Serbs considered to be holy places. In the old houses of Central Europe, which were built out of wood, or wattle and daub, the only stone parts were hearth stones (stones which formed the bottom and the curb of the heath), doorstep stones and corner stones (which supported the main upright stakes which held the whole house)...

Slavs believed that their dead ancestors live with them in their houses under the hearth, under the doorstep and in the corners of the house...In stones which were located there...Interestingly these same places were by Slavs believed to be the places where God (first Pagan then Christian) resided...

This is why it was on the hearth, on the doorstep and in corners of the house, that Serbs made their sacrifices to the dead and to God...

The same belief of the corner stones being the seat of the protective spirit is found in Baltic countries. I talked about it in my post "Stones with narrow bottom bowls".

Slavs actually wanted their ancestors to live with them. They believed that it was the dead ancestors, their spirits, which protected the living and gave good health, good luck, good harvest....

So is this belief the reason why people believed in the power of stone idols? Stone is just a stone unless a spirit of an ancestor (or deity) is believed to reside inside of it. In which case stone is the deity. When Slavs brought sacrifices to the Dabog stone during the rain making ritual in Belarus, they were bringing sacrifices to Dabog...

When Slavs brought sacrifices and prayed to "Baba" (Grandmother) stones, they brought sacrifices and prayed to Mother Earth which resided in them...

This is seriously cool...

Vampires

In Slavic culture a white horse was a sacred animal dedicated to the Sun God Svetovid. 

White horses were kept in Svetovid temples and used for divination. I talked about the white horse as a symbol of Svetovid, Slavic sun god in my post "Horseman". White horse was the symbol of the sky. 

Black horse was seen as the symbol of the underworld. What is interesting is that the underworld the domain of Dabog, Serbian supreme god, the main ancestral deity, to whom all the chthonic rituals were dedicated. The same god Dabog who was also Serbian Sun god. Paradoxical I know. I wrote about this in my post "Day star".

In the past in Serbia, if people suspected that someone from their village was a vampire, they would take a black foal to the graveyard, and let it wander among the graves. The grave by which it stopped was the vampire grave. 

Once the horse identified who the vampire was, the villagers would open the grave and stick hawthorn stake through the corpses heart into the ground below. This was done to "tie the body to the ground" 

From "Srpski Mitoloski Recnik - Grupa Autora"

Interestingly, in the past, in Serbia, a stake was used to mark every grave. Probably as magical way of insuring that dead don't turn into vampires. Or maybe... In old Serbian graveyards in villages Brestovac near Grocka and in Dobrača on mountain Rudnik, archaeologists have discovered remains of wooden stakes. There was always one stake per grave stuck at the head of the grave where today we find tombstones and crosses.

In the first half of the 20th century, in Serbian villages Zlokućan i Razgojna,  in Leskovac region, when the person was buried, a stake was stuck into the ground just below the feet to mark the grave. Probably because at that stage the stake which was normally stuck into the ground above the head was replaced with a cross or a tombstone. After the stake was stuck into the ground, the priest emptied the ash from his incense burner around the base of the stake... 

According to ethnographers, in this part of Serbia, stakes were eventually replaced with stone stake-like gravestones. Like these ones in this cemetery in Dići

These look very much like standing stones used for marking Bronze Age graves... 

Were standing stones originally wooden stakes? Or did wooden stakes used as grave markers develop from standing stones only for people to go back to standing stones of sort?

In the first half of the 20th century, in Bosnia a stretcher made from two stakes was used to take the body to the graveyard. After the body was buried, one stake was stuck into the ground above the head and one below the feet...

Among Serbs, the stake on the grave seemed to have represented the dead person lying in the grave. There is a belief in Serbia that if a dead man is taken out of the house he should never be brought back in. If that happens, then the house has to be "secured" using a "dead stake" which is stuck into the house floor...

This symbolic equating of the dead person lying in a grave and a stake stuck in the grave is found in the ancient Serbian cursing ceremony called "prokletija". In it a stake representing a unidentified or runaway perpetrator of a serious crime is cursed and then stoned until a cairn is created around the stake...

That this marking of graves with stakes is an ancient Serbian (Slavic?) custom, can be seen from the fact that in "The Life of Otto, Apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139" the author Ebbo, talks about the funerary custom of Baltic Slavs (Sorbs) of marking graves with stakes:

 ...and that the Christian dead should not be buried
with the heathen in the woods or the fields, but
in cemeteries, as is the custom of all Christians ; that
they should not place sticks on their tombs, and
should abandon all pagan customs and depraved
practices ;...

In Serbia people believed that the body (flesh not bones) had to decompose within 3 years in order for the soul to reach the otherworld. If it did not, this was the sign that "the god didn't want this person's soul" because it was evil. Which is why these kind of dead turned into vampires. 

This is really interesting considering that it is completely the opposite from the Christian belief that it is the bodies of the holy men (and women) which don't decay. An "incorruptible" body of  Mary of Jesus de León y Delgado...

It is also very interesting that in Serbia vampire was a synonym for werewolf. 

Wolf was totem animal of the Serbs. Serbian Sun god Dabog was also known as Wolf shepherd. And Serbs believed that they turn into wolves when they die...I wrote about this in my post "Wolf feast".

In a view of that, how are we to understand all this?

Wolf feast

In some parts of Serbia, on Christmas Eve people used to take a table laid with food on the doorstep of the house and would then ask wolves to come to the feast. In other parts of Serbia they would invite the dead to the feast in the same way.

Doorstep is one of the most sacred places in Serbian houses because it is believed that the dead ancestors gather under the doorstep stone. There are indications that Serbs (some of them anyway) used to bury their dead under the doorstep, where they would "protect the entrance into the house" from evil spirits.

So why did Serbs invite wolves to the feast in the same way they invited the dead to the feast?

Serbs venerated their ancestors. They believed that all that is good and bad comes from happy or unhappy ancestors. So it was extremely important to keep them happy, which usually meant entertained, well fed and well watered. This is why no major Serbian celebration could pass without the ancestors being invited to join. And Christmas in particular, being the biggest celebration in Serbian calendar, had to be celebrated together with the ancestors.

Now Serbs believed in Father Sky (Sun) and Mother Earth. They believed that they actually descended from these "deities". They particularly considered Dabog (Sky, Sun god) to be their forefather.

At the same time wolf was the totem animal of the Serbs, their animal twin. The belief that wolf was Serbian animal twin was manifested in many folk customs. For instance when a child was born, the custom in Serbian villages was for the father to open the house door, stand on the doorstep, and announce the birth of a son by shouting: "Rodila vučica vuka!" (A she-wolf just gave birth to a wolf cub!). A mother would announce its wolf nature to her child by singing it a lullaby which started with "Nini sine, vuče i bauče, vučica te u gori rodila" (Sleep my son, my wolf, a she-wolf gave birth to you in a mountain). A newborn baby was pulled through a wolf jaw to protect it from evil, illness and demons...In that way Dabog, the supreme god of the Serbs, the archetypal ancestor of the Serbs, who was also called the Wolf Shepherd, was giving his blessing to his new descendant. Amulets made from various parts of wolf body were used to protect people from various dangers including devil himself. The name Vuk (Wolf) is a very common Serbian name and it is believed that it protects the person from evil.

It was even believed that Serbs turn to wolves when they die.

Vampire, a dead body which gets out of the grave attacks people and sucks their blood is by Serbs also called vukodlak (werewolf).

In Montenegro and Hercegovina, Serbs simply called vampire "wolf". Serbian Kuči tribe from Montenegro believed that every vampire after a while turns into a wolf. The reason why vampire is seen as a wolf is because Dabog, the Wolf Shepherd, is not just the Sun (Sky) god, but also the good of the underworld, the good of the dead. Which is why his animal, wolf, a chthonic animal itself, is seen as a natural metamorphosis for the dead. Werewolf (Vampire) is the link between the world of the living and the world of the dead, as he is both dead and alive...

So this is why the same ritual invitation to the feast was performed for both the ancestors and the wolves.

In some parts of Serbia, the Christmas feast for wolves was laid on a crossroads and wolves were called to come and "take theirs and leave mine". The man who brought the food for wolves had to run home without turning.

Crossroads are one of the favourite gathering places of the dead. The "not turning while going home" rule is also applied to the family coming back from the graveyard after burying someone. Here again we see the link between the wolves and the dead...