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Kilka uwag na temat wczesnośredniowiecznych pochówków antywampirycznych na ziemiach polskich

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Wajda S.

Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2012

vol. 60

issue 2

205-208

The issue of early-mediaeval anti-vampiric burials is difficult to interpret and stirs emotions. The first information on such burials appeared in the 1950s. The phenomenon was more closely investigated by Maria Miśkiewiczowa nad Helena Zoll-Adamikowa, who identified the characteristics of anti-vampiric burials, which include: lack of sepulchral accessories, a skull separated from the skeleton (often placed between the legs), placing the body face down or on a side, placing the body with the legs bent up. Many of those features could have been incidental, as was noted by the above-mentioned researchers themselves. Unfortunately, some researchers interpret archaeological sources uncritically, labelling as “anti-vampiric” all the burials differing from the majority in a given burial ground. This leads to false hypotheses, as was the case with the “vampire” from the burial ground in Buczek, in whose chest an aspen peg was allegedly found. When the original research report from 1956 was recovered, it turned out that the skeleton’s chest had actually not survived and the peg had been a charred one. Such misinterpretations are numerous, for example in cases of decapitation or lack of some other body parts it is rarely stated whether the bones bear any traces of cutting or breaking. It is also very important to distinguish post-burial processes, which may result in characteristics taken to be an indication of anti-vampiric rituals (as was the case with the burial in Dziekanowice). It should be also remembered that on the basis of excavations the archaeologist is not able to reconstruct all the past funeral rites.

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1 Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

1 Wajda S.

1 2012

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Kilka uwag na temat wczesnośredniowiecznych pochówków antywampirycznych na ziemiach polskich