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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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Photograph of a face-down burial, also known as a prone burial, in a churchyard in Berlin, just one of almost a hundred medieval and post-medieval burials in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria included in the study. Source: (Claudia Maria Melisch / Landesdenkmalamt Berlin)

Buried Face-Down 400-Years-Ago, But Through A Fear Of Zombies, Or God?

In 2014 a construction project required Swiss anthropologist Amelie Alterauge of the University of Bern Institute of Forensic Medicine to investigate a very unusual burial in a 400-year-old cemetery...
No escape…Detail of a miniature of ‘Death Chopping Down a Tree’ - British Library, Royal 15 D V f. 36. Jehan Froissart. Chroniques. Netherlands, last quarter of the 15th century.

Medieval Villagers Were Ready to Mutilate Potential Zombies

For the first time, researchers have found evidence in a belief in the walking dead in medieval England, where they analyzed bones and skeletons that were decapitated, burned, and otherwise mutilated...
An evil undead woman and a demon king spell the end of Khoma Brut in a Slavic tale

Beware the Evil Dead in Myth and Folklore: The Tale of Khoma Brut

A well-known medieval tale talks about the three living and the three dead. As the story goes, three young men meet three undead walking, talking corpses. The dead tell the living that they must mend...
The print depicts a samurai fighting snakes, which are conjured by a ghost as the ghosts of Heian court ladies watch. Japan, 1850.

Malevolent Phantoms, Corpse Brides, and Ancestor Spirits: The Ancient Belief in Ghosts – PART II

Many ancient civilizations had beliefs surrounding the hauntings of ghosts and malevolent spirits, and so they relied on careful rituals and exorcisms to keep the supernatural at bay. Read Part I...
Ancient legends tell of ghost hauntings.

Malevolent Phantoms, Corpse Brides, and Ancestor Spirits: The Ancient Belief in Ghosts – PART I

Ghosts and malevolent spirits haunted the ancients, and so they relied on careful rituals and exorcisms to keep the supernatural at bay. The concept of a spiritual afterlife connects cultures across...
Drawing by D. Weiss of the burial in Tomb 693, from G. Di Stefano's journal.

Ancient Greeks apparently feared zombies so much they weighed down the dead

Modern people have not been the only ones fascinated by the undead. Ancient Greeks on the island of Sicily had a fear of revenants so dire they weighed bodies down with rocks and amphora pieces to...
30-39 year old female’s remains with iron sickle placed across neck

Researchers suggest cholera may be behind 17th century vampire graves

Researchers have examined the skeletal remains of 17 th century graves in northwestern Poland and have speculated that the ones given vampire burials may have actually been cholera victims,...