Some burials also contained defixiones — lead tablets with curses.
Archaeologists have made a sensational discovery in the very heart of the Eternal City. In the necropolis near the historic road Via Ostia, an unknown sector from the late antique period has been uncovered, which specialists have already dubbed the "vampire cemetery." The deceased buried here were pierced with metal nails — spikes driven between the ribs and into the eye sockets!
Preliminary analysis showed that the nails were placed in the bodies after death. This led scientists to consider ancient beliefs about vampires that were prevalent in the Roman Empire. Similar burials have previously been found in Poland, Bulgaria, and Croatia.
However, as historians have discovered, for the Romans, nails had not only a repelling but also a sacred significance. They were considered powerful magical objects capable of protecting the body from desecration, securing the transition of the soul to the afterlife, and safeguarding the living from the return of the deceased.
Some burials also contained defixiones — lead tablets with curses that were pierced with a nail. Such "dossiers" were compiled on the deceased who had committed vices or crimes during their lifetime. According to scholars, the finding indicates the coexistence in late antique Rome of both pious burial practices and rituals of "posthumous punishment."
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