Undead reCkoning
The mediæval zombies of Wharram Percy
Fears that the dead may return to make a nuisance of themselves have been around for centuries. Archæologists studying 137 bone fragments dating from 11th and 14th century from Wharram Percy in North Yorkshire showed cut marks on the skulls and upper body bones that indicated deliberate mutilation after death. As reported in the Journal
of Archæological Science, the bones showed bodies were decapitated, dismembered and burnt. Theories that the bodies were treated in this fashion because these people were viewed as outsiders or that their remains were cannibalised by starving villagers were considered but discounted by scientists from Historic England, and the University of Southampton proposed the treatment of the bodies was intended to stop corpses from arising from their graves. Simon Mays, skeletal biologist at Historic England, was quoted by the Guardian as saying: “The idea that the Wharram Percy bones are the remains of corpses burnt and dismembered to stop them walking from their graves seems to fit the evidence best. If we are right, then this is the first good archæological evidence we have for this practice.” This led the Guardian to suggest that “The research… may represent the first scientific evidence in England of attempts to prevent the dead from walking and harming the living – still common in folklore in many parts of the world.”
In fact, it would be more accurate to describe this as the first physical evidence of such a practice in England during the Mediæval period, outside chronicles from the period such as that of William of Newburgh in 1197 which featured four accounts of walking corpses, three of which were subject to mutilation and burning to cease their perambulations.
In British archæology such ‘ghost killing’ was unknown until evidence was revealed in 1985/6 that ghosts were being destroyed in Iron Age in Yorkshire. Previous archæological evidence of mutilation practices proposed as anti-revenant measures or precautions during the Iron Age appeared in Current
Archaeology (Jan 1987), concerning the excavations at Garton in Yorkshire, which contained multi-period burial sites with evidence that ceremonies had been performed to lay ghosts. Interestingly, this site is just 11 miles (18km) from Wharram Percy. The introduction of the article (pp234-237) reads: “When powerful men die their ghosts sometimes return to haunt the
living. When such men die therefore it is important to kill off their ghosts as well”. Dr Ian Stead of the British Museum stated: “The most spectacular part of the excavation consisted of the barrows with the ghost killing ceremony. They were easily distinguished from the majority of the barrows by being round”. Each skeleton was lying crouched on its side in a deep pit and accompanied by spearheads, which had been stuck into the body when actually in the grave.
The original aim had been to find a chariot burial for the British Museum and, resulting from a magnetic survey by Tony Pacitto, a potential site was discovered at Garton Station. Excavations revealed a number of Anglo-Saxon burials and the chariot that now resides in the Museum’s exhibition.
It was found that seven spears were thrown at the one body buried with a sword behind his back, and as the earth was tossed back, seven more such weapons were cast in.
Another corpse, with a toe ring, had 11 spears thrown at it and yet another four iron and three bone spears. Dr Stead commented: “It is tempting to wonder whether we have here the rite of ritually killing a corpse to ensure that the ghost did not return to haunt the living” Guardian, 3 April 2017.
A skeleton from the third or fourth century AD, with the tongue apparently severed and a flat stone pushed into the mouth, was discovered at Stanwick near the River Nene in Northamptonshire 1991, but research on the bones has only recently been published by Historic England. One theory put forward suggests that the man had mental health issues and severed his own tongue; or was it a harsh form of punishment? “The fact that he’s buried face down in the grave is consistent with somebody whose behaviour marked them out as odd or threatening within a community,” said Simon Mays. “It’s a way of stopping the corpse from rising from its grave and menacing the living.”
Other face-down or prone burials have been discovered previously in late Roman cemeteries. In 2014, a team from the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archæology at the Vatican discovered the bones of a 13-year-old girl buried in the early Middle Ages face down in front of a church at San Calocero in Albenga, northern Italy. (Sydney) D.Telegraph, 9 Oct 2014; ibtimes.co.uk, 23 Jan 2017.
Rocks have been in the mouths of other skeletons – for example in two eighth century skeletons in Co Roscommon, Ireland [ FT283:18], and one found in a 1576 plague pit nearVenice [ FT249:18]. A male skeleton found in 2014 in Kamien Pomorski, Poland, about 500 years old, had the front teeth knocked out and a rock inserted in its mouth; and the legs had been pierced through [ FT316:14]. In 2012, near a monastery in the Black Sea town of Sozopol in Bulgaria, archæologists found two 13th-century skeletons pierced through the chest with iron rods, supposedly to stop them from turning into vampires – a practice common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century… and indeed much later. The rite was performed in Romania as recently as 2004, when Petre Toma, 76, a supposed vampire, was dug up, his chest opened with a wooden stake, and his heart removed and burnt [ FT187:22].
A grave in the central Bulgarian town ofVeliko Tarnovo, at least several centuries old, contained the skeleton of a man in his 30s tied to the ground with four iron clamps, while burning embers had been placed on top of his grave. Around 100 similar burials have been found in Bulgaria, with more in neighbouring Serbia and other Balkan countries. Another recent find was 3,000 Czech graves where the bodies were weighed down with rocks to keep the dead in their place [ FT291:20].
Similar vampire ‘remedies’ were practised in New England in the 19th century – records of at least 16 cases have been found [ FT80:46-47]. It was believed that those who died of tuberculosis returned from the dead, feeding on the blood of their kinsfolk and causing them to waste away. Dead consumptives were sometimes disinterred, their hearts burned and the ashes used in medicine.