16th-century Venetian vampire burial unearthed

Pushing back the history of vampires: an Italian researcher claims to have found a 16th-century vampire burial.

Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth...
The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.

Why the brick?  To keep the corpse-undead-thing from chewing on shrouds, or folks.

If this has any basis in 17th-century folklore, it's important to consider as an antecedent to the great 18th-century vampire controversies.  This would be an example of the kind of folk culture the Enlightenment approach of Calmet et al wanted to organize.

One blogger realizes the main reason for this story's buzz: everyone loves female vampires.

(thanks to librarybob, Jesse Walker, and everyone)

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