Polish “vampire” burial sheds light on 17th-century efforts to keep the dead in their graves

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Researchers investigating an unusual 17th-century burial in northern Poland, in which the remains of a teenage girl were found with a padlock fastened to her toe and a sickle placed across her neck, believe the measures may have been intended to stop her returning from the dead.

The burial, discovered in 2022 at an unmarked cemetery in the village of Pień, is an example of what archaeologists describe as “anti-vampiric” or “anti-demonic” burial, in which precautions were taken to protect the living from a deceased person believed to pose a danger.

In a newly published academic paper, a team of researchers led by Dariusz Poliński, an archaeologist at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, say that the girl, whom they have named “Zosia”, may have been blamed by her contemporaries for misfortunes such as disease and famine.

The unusual combination of objects that Zosia was buried with – a triangular padlock attached to her left big toe and an iron sickle laid across her throat, with the blade facing towards her neck – immediately attracted archaeologists’ attention when they were discovered.

Poliński and his colleagues have used radiocarbon dating, DNA sequencing, isotope analysis and X-ray and microscopic imaging to investigate the burial. Their findings have now been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

The researchers have established that Zosia, who was aged between 17 and 19, died around the mid-17th century, most likely between 1620 and 1674. Her grave appears to have been secured in two stages, with analysis of soil layers showing that it was reopened after the initial burial and the sickle added later.

“It was unusual that there were two precautions, two methods of showing that this skeleton should be kept in the grave – so the fear of the body coming back to life was greater,” Poliński told CNN.

The researchers say the padlock had several possible meanings in funerary symbolism. It could mark the end of earthly life and the transition to the world of the dead, prevent contact between the living and the dead, break a run of bad luck, or protect the community from the deceased returning.

“In some interpretations, it was also believed to help halt the spread of epidemics,” Poliński told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The sickle had a more direct purpose: if the deceased tried to rise from the grave, it was positioned to sever the head or slit the throat, preventing her from returning to the world of the living.

However, the latest findings suggest there may have been a third protective element.

Researchers found “a distinct green discolouration” in the oral cavity, suggesting that an object containing a high proportion of copper had been placed in the girl’s mouth. Given the extent of the discolouration, they have largely ruled out the possibility that it was simply a coin.

“The protective measures taken at the time of the original burial and subsequently after the grave was opened clearly demonstrate the immense fear of Zosia,” said Poliński, quoted by news website Wirtualna Polska.

Poliński believes that the woman may have been ill or had a physical or mental disability, leading her neighbours to treat her badly while she was alive and fear that she would haunt them after her death.

However, the researchers found no skeletal evidence of trauma, violence or disease that might explain her treatment, and her cause of death remains unknown.

The Pień cemetery, which has not been marked on maps, contains several other unusual burials, including a child buried face down with a padlock beneath the foot and skeletons weighed down with rocks.

This has led researchers to suggest that the cemetery may have been located on unconsecrated ground, away from a church or chapel, and used for people who were poor, disgraced, feared, or otherwise excluded from the community.

Zosia’s burial, however, appears to have been unusual in another respect. Analysis suggests she was of relatively high social status. Traces of silk and gold-and-silver thread near her skull suggest she wore an expensive cap, a luxury item generally associated with nobility or wealth.

Two years ago, sculptor and artist Oscar D. Nilsson unveiled a 3D facial reconstruction of Zosia, based on measurements of her skull and skeletal clues about her age, weight and health. The reconstruction shows a young woman with blue eyes, light brown hair and a broad nose.

“It’s really ironic, in a way,” Nilsson told Reuters at the time. “These people burying her, they did everything they could in order to prevent her from coming back from the dead…We have done everything we can in order to bring her back to life.”

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Andrzej Romański/UMK

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.