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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vampires aren't real... grow up.
The sad part is someone wrote this article and now people will travel and spend money on something that is fictional and untrue. Like some other comments on here stated the truth is these people where probably murdered and now being used to attract tourists to a very poor part of the world. That my friends is the truth.
*sigh* they were not murderd (well at least not by an iron rod to the heart) they were staked POST MORTEM. They were already dead. During plagues they needed some reason for people dying and one was vampires. Decomposing bodies can leak blood out of thier mouths and thus was born the vampire myth. Or at least one version.
Bulgaria led the European Union last year in the increase in hotel occupancy by foreigners, with numbers up almost 20% over the previous year. From 20 rooms to 23.
"Good evening"
Abraham Lincoln showed them who is boss. Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter.
Awesome.... That movie is soooo corny but in a good way.
Why are people such jerks to each other online?
Everyone acts like jerks to eachother because they don't have to deal with that person directly. Today's society is less reserved when interacting online as there's no recourse in what they say to another person. It's easy to bash someone behind a monitor screen and know that they will have 99.9% chance of never meeting that person face to face. With the guise of keeping "techie" people are texting, facebooking, and whatever social media to reach groups of people rather than just give a friend or loved one a simple phone call.
Because they have low self-esteem and feel the need to bash people they don't even know in order to give their lives meaning.
because they don't have to face the person they're being jerks to...cowards!!!!
"There's a sucker born every day." P.T. Barnum
"presumed to be vampires"...........how does 'presume' define TRUTH?
So, if I stab someone in the heart with an iron rod, bury them in the ground for a few hundred years – that makes them a vampire? All this shows is a lack of knowledge by medevil civiliztions....a lack of knowledge by CURRENT civilizations....and a potential money making opportunity for places that have ZIP going for them currently!
Kind of a weak article....
it's a guarantee that it'll grab attention and sell tickets...
LOL at all of the people throwing politics into this discussion. I understand a jibe or two at your least favorite politician, but to actually carry on with that is rather asinine.
And the people talking about other being dumb because vamps don't exist; we know, Bulgaria knows, but they found graves of supposed vampires from 700 years ago, meaning those people were thought to be vampires back in the day, not that we think they are vampires who died 700 years ago. Reading comprehension much?
Also, these people were not killed by having these stakes run through them, it was post-mortem – meaning after they died – as was the norm for dealing with those suspected of being undead.
Examine the teeth!
Nice timing with True Blood returning to HBO on Sunday!
That looks like Dick Cheney distant cousins.
Now had they had found fangs on their teeth THAT might have been evidence.......
I MUST KNOW THE ANSWER!!!!
Sometimes my wife's panties smell like boiled cabbage, and I wonder if vampires are to blame.
You're disgusting and why are you sniffing your wife's panties....Ewwww
And all they have is the evidence of these corpses having been stabbed in the chest with an iron stake? So if they find someone with a silver knife in their chest, I guess they were werewolves, with no possibility that they were just stabbed like that by some ancient murderer or maybe died in battle? I'll get some skeletal remains, leave an iron stake in the chest area, and open my own vampire museum. *rolls eyes*