The discovery of the graves of suspected vampires in Bulgaria may turn into a tourism gold mine, according to local news reports.
During excavations of a monastery in the city of Sozopol, Bulgaria's National Museum of History says it unearthed two skeletons that showed the deceased person had been stabbed through the heart with an iron rod.
"This was (the) customary way (in) Bulgarian medieval tradition to deal with people which were presumed to be vampires," the museum's website says.
People at the time of the burial of the skeletons, about 700 years ago, thought that stabbing the corpses multiple times with an iron rod through the heart would prevent the dead from rising and attacking the living, museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov said, according to a report from the Sofia News Agency.
Dimitrov said more than 100 such "vampire" burials have been discovered in Bulgaria over the years, according to the Sofia News Agency.
But headlines of the latest find have piqued interest in the U.S., Europe and Asia, the report said, and tour operators are fielding inquiries about what it called "vampire vacations."
Already, people were lining up at the excavation site at the monastery of St. Nicolas the Wonderworker, the Sofia News Agency reported.
Big lines for vampires could pump even more blood into the country's expanding tourism industry. Bulgaria led the European Union last year in the increase in hotel occupancy by foreigners, with numbers up almost 20% over the previous year.
No stats on how many of those folks slept with the lights on, however.
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"Count Dracula" was based on Prince Vlad, whose father was hailed as the dragon slayer (dracul, dracula meaning son of the dragon slayer). Although bloodthirsty, he was not a vampire in the sense that he had fangs and sucked blood from his victims' necks. The Romanian folk name for him was Teppes–impaler. He had learned that execution method from the Turks, running a stake up through the fundaments and out below the chest bone and then raising the person up (the Turkish sultan would pay his executioner bonuses based on how long the victim suffered), and used it liberally. Whether these Bulgarian corpses were mutilated because the people thought that they had witch powers or something else does not seem to be clear.
Close...
The area that Vlad lived is in Transylvania and though it has been part of Romania since 1919, the people of this region are ethnically Hungarian (Magyar). Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in it's break up, Romania did amazing in the negotiations by also taking the allies side at a time when victory was unclear.
Good for Bulgaria and I hope the extra tourism helps and spills over into Romania too.
Pretty good move on Bulgaria's part. Smart way to wrangle in some added cash.
Now if we could just get banasy and Hope to take their chit chat somewhere else....
"I don't drink..... WINE!
How do they know that those people were stabbed when they were dead? I mean that were medieval times, people had swords.
An iron rod would leave different tool marks on the bones than an edged weapon.
Swords make a different type of cut than a rod.
Because the rod was still there, presumably. The idea of the stake thru the heart was not only to kill the undead vampire, but to pin them inside the coffin so they couldn't get out.
They probably were not vampires right, but society thought that they were for some reason? I wonder what that reason was.
Uh maybe it was the blood drinking they did each day? that is a sure indicator of someone being a vampire.
"probably not vampires"?? It's a safe bet.
No different than the Salem witch trials which were much more recent
Lolz nice.....;-)
"an iron rod through the heart would prevent the dead from rising and attacking the living" To be fair, this did work.
Good point! Lol!
Wow the photo really brings this vacation brochure to life, NOT. Bones on dirt, could be anywhere, no rod. Take the curtain down CNN, was he black or white? and the race of the murderers?
Oh sweet Jesus and his virgin mother!!!
how funny you don't believe in vampires, yet you believe an omnipotent sky being impregnated a virgin. who had a child that rose from the dead and bled water?
Viaquest...I think that was sarcasm
so if we dig up a body with a bullet hole in the head we could only assume that it was a zombie.
We have a full body red wine for you to taste. . .
Barakula – "I vant to suck your future"
now thats funny right there!!!!
They burned witches at the stake, why didn't they burn the bodies of vampires and zombies. It makes it twice as hard to rise from the grave if all that exists is a pile of ashes.
no word on if the bones glitter?