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- It was two years ago in rural Poland that archeologists made a gruesome discovery – a skeleton buried with a sickle across her neck and a giant padlock on her toe.
- Feared as a ‘real-life vampire’, this form of ‘double protection’ was fitted to the female corpse by Polish locals to keep her from rising from the grave.
- Now, the experts have revealed new information about the woman, along with artist’s illustrations of what she may have looked like.
- The ‘vampire’, christened Zosia by the archeologists, was 18 years old at her time of death, about 350 years ago in the mid-17th century.
- Bone scans have uncovered an abnormality in Zosia’s breast bone, which suggest she may have had a physical deformity that caused great pain.
- It may have been this deformity that made her especially feared as a vampire before she was brutally sacrificed and buried.
- But despite being deemed to attack the living after death, the artist’s impression suggests she was fair of face with blue eyes and cropped hair.
- The latest revelations about Zosia are the subject of a new two-part documentary, ‘Field of Vampires’, to be broadcast on Sky History.
- The ‘vampire’, christened Zosia by the archeologists, was 18-years old at her time of death, about 350 years ago in the mid-17th century
- Her body had been dually protected so that the deceased would not rise from the grave – a triangular padlock on her left big toe and her neck was pinned down to the ground with a sickle
- Her body had been dually protected so that the deceased would not rise from the grave – a triangular padlock on her left big toe and her neck was pinned down to the ground with a sickle