dracula – Museum of the Weird

Posted on June 20, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The ‘Real’ Dracula’s Grave is found…AND WE’RE GOING TO OPEN IT!?!?

I hope I don’t need to explain that I don’t mean the iconic DRACULA dracula. Not Bram Stoker’s creation, famously played by Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman and many others. And I CERTAINLY don’t mean the sparkly Cullen family members. As fun as it is to imagine that Bram’s flourishy caped creation is lurking out there in the shadows, I’m afraid he was based on a more conventional human, although one with probably a bigger body count to his name.

I’ll admit to being a bit startled in this day and age when ANYBODY doesn’t know that Dracula was based on a real jerk of a 15th century Eastern European warlord and ruler, Vlad Dracul Tepes, who was affectionately titled “The Impaler”. Aside from his penchant for impaling his enemies on big stakes outside his castle, his murderous activities pretty much ran the wincingly imaginable gamut, and he was rumored to drink the blood of his victims to boot. As “defenders of Christianity” go, Vlad was pretty much on the ‘we wish people would quit asking about it’ list for the church. But ol’ Bram just HAD to write one of the most popular characters in literary history…

The upshot is, Vlad was a pretty bad dude. To say the least. Add the “Dracula” myth to his legend, and the fact that no one actually knows what happened to him and you’ve got something that is gonna fuel speculation. He ‘disappeared’ during battle; some reports have him dead, some led away in chains, but no one really knows for sure. Until possibly now.

Some Estonian researchers think they’ve found the final resting place of The Count in a church in Naples. The tomb in question is covered with Transylvanian symbols and images of the dragon (what the ‘dracul’ in Vlad’s name meant) and two opposing sphinxes which represent the city of Thebes (also called ‘Tepes’). Considering everyone else in the tomb is a regular Italian nobleman and that some rumors say Vlad was ransomed off to his daughter who lived in Naples, it looks like they’ve got a solid case.

But they want permission to open it…

Doesn’t seem to matter how much we recognize the fictional differential between Count Dracula and Vlad Tepes, it still makes one want to run screaming NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!

Posted on November 9, 2012 by MOTW Admin

NEW BOOK DELVES INTO THE SCIENCE OF MONSTERS

We all know, love, and have our favorite of the classic monsters from our childhood but, what was the original inspiration for these creepy creatures of the shadows? A new book being published called “Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters” delves into what fears and real dangers the people of the time were living with that would have created them. From disease to war, times have most certainly been tough in the past and everyone had plenty to worry about.

Reuters reports:

Nov 8 (Reuters) – The suave and sensitive Edward Cullen of “Twilight” may be the norm for vampires these days, but fictional monsters such as Dracula originally sprang from the fear of inexplicable diseases and the mysteries of death in the natural world.

So argues science journalist Matt Kaplan in “Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters,” an examination of monsters around the world and throughout history – the science behind their origins, and why they matter to us even now.

“When our kids ask for monster stories around the campfire, they are behaving in a way that is not dissimilar to lion cubs,” Kaplan said in an email.

“Lion cubs play fight so they can test out their skills in a safe place where nobody is going to get maimed or killed. Monster stories serve a similar purpose, they allow us to face our worst fears without the risks that are normally associated with them.”

Some are simple. The Kraken tales of mammoth monster squid, along with the Leviathan of the Bible, are most likely based upon the existence of real creatures such as whales.

The terrifying Medusa of Greek myths, with her hair made of snakes and a gaze that could turn things to stone, may have been distantly connected to the idea of fossils for ancient people, with the snakes in her hair an example of pure fear.

Though mentions of vampire-like creatures exist as early as ancient Greece, it took hundreds of years for tales of the creatures to gradually evolve into the haunting undead of more recent history.

Accounts of people found in their graves with blood on their lips and their stomachs seemingly full, as if they had just eaten, may be explained by simple decay, with gas buildup throughout the body sometimes pushing blood up from the lungs. Elongated canine teeth and fingernails was due to skin shrinking after death and pulling away, making both more prominent.

Later, greater awareness of contagious diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis – which could cause people who came in contact with the ill person to also sicken and die – further contributed to the myth. This was especially true due to incubation periods that weren’t understood at the time, making it unclear how the diseases were being spread.

“One death would follow another in a dominolike progression,” writes Kaplan. “In a morbid sense, these patients were literally killing their friends and relatives, but from their deathbeds rather than the hereafter.”

But vampires have now undergone a radical transformation, a process that began with the publication of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” but has speeded up in recent years.

“If tuberculosis, influenza, rabies and bloated bodies are the human experiences from which Dracula came, how have we now ended up with the kind, honorable and handsome Edward Cullen?” Kaplan said.

VAMPIRE BURIAL UNCOVERED IN BRITAIN

Hard to rise from the dead when there's a few stakes in your heart!

A new report details a finding from the 1950s that send chills down my spine.

A skeleton was discovered in Southwell, Notts in the UK with a number of stakes through various parts of it’s body. Apparently, administered post-mordem, they were to keep this criminal/deviant from rising from the grave as an undead to feast on the life force of the living!

The Telegraph writes:

The discovery of a skeleton found with metal spikes through its shoulders, heart and ankles, dating from 550-700AD and buried in the ancient minster town of Southwell, Notts, is detailed in a new report.

It is believed to be a ‘deviant burial’, where people considered the ‘dangerous dead’, such as vampires, were interred to prevent them rising from their graves to plague the living.

In reality, victims of this treatment were social outcasts who scared others because of their unusual behaviour. Only a handful of such burials have been unearthed in the UK.

The discovery is detailed in a new report by Matthew Beresford, of Southwell Archaeology.

The skeleton was found by archaeologist Charles Daniels during the original investigation of the site in Church Street in the town 1959, which revealed Roman remains.

Mr Beresford said when Mr Daniels found the skeleton one of the first things he did was to check for fangs in a light-hearted way.

“In the 1950s the Hammer Horror films were popular and so people had seen Christopher Lee’s Dracula so it would have been quite relevant,” said Mr Beresford.

In his report, Mr Beresford says: “The classic portrayal of the dangerous dead (more commonly known today as a vampire) is an undead corpse arising from the grave and all the accounts from this period reflect this.

“Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the punishment of being buried in water-logged ground, face down, decapitated, staked or otherwise was reserved for thieves, murderers or traitors or later for those deviants who did not conform to societies rules: adulterers, disrupters of the peace, the unpious or oath breaker.

“Which of these the Southwell deviant was we will never know.”

ANCIENT VAMPIRES UNEARTHED IN BULGARIA

Could the legends and tales of old be true?

All the recent news stories of “zombie attacks” recently have gotten people wondering if the creatures from our darkest nightmares and classic horror movies are becoming a reality. Well, the signs don’t look so good when you throw in finding a couple of people that were buried 800 years ago with stakes in their hearts! Sounds like one classic horror movie monster I think we’re all familiar with, the vampire!

Bela Lugosi as Dracula, the original vampire!

Discovery News writes:

Two medieval “vampire” skeletons emerged near a monastery in the Bulgarian Black Sea town of Sozopol, local archaeologists announced.

Dating back 800 years to the Middle Ages, the skeletons were unearthed with iron rods pierced through their chests — evidence of an exorcism against a vampire. The ritual was aimed at preventing potentially dangerous people, such as enemies, murderers or individuals who died suddenly from a strange illness, from turning into vampires after death.

“The practice was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century,” Bozhidar Dimitrov, chief of the National History Museum in Sofia, told reporters.

The newly discovered skeletons are the latest in a series of finds across Europe. According to Dimitrov, over 100 skeletons, buried in the same manner, had been unearthed in Bulgaria only.