Hello, Welcome to my other episode of ten Podcasts Laying In this episode,
I stay Close to Hall where we look into the discovery of the vampire skeletons
of Cultician. But first a very special bonus episode by my seven year old
son. Hi, my name is Devin. This is my podcast. Once
I walked past a haunted house and then I heard lots of coffins banging in
the house, So then I broke in, and then I saw lots of
monsters. Bye. Well, that's going to be very hard to follow,
but we're gonna try. In two thousand and seven, archaeologists from it Sligo
made a startling discovery that would further question what we know of our ancestors and
their possible beliefs in the spiritual and paranormal. In a project funded by the
Royal Irish Academy between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine, archaeologists
excavated one hundred and thirty seven skeletons from a site containing over three thousand skeletons
buried several centuries on top of each other in a site that overlooks luck Key
at Keldician Knock Vicker, County, ross Common as per chief archeologist Chris Read,
the bodies were treated in a very violent and aggressive fashion. So what
exactly is the story of the vampire skeletons of Kultician. It's safe to say
Ireland is considerably sacred mysterious place, especially the West, with all its folklore,
fairies and myths. In two thousand and five, archaeologists were commissioned to
find an ancient bishop's castle by the Royal Academy of Ireland that dated back to
the twelve to century. At the start of the work, they found what
they hoped would be the suspected site of the bishop's palace, but what awaited
them was a lot more sinister than that. Excavations began under flagstones near the
site where the bishop's palace was thought to have been. Once the flagstones were
lifted, they were confronted by what Chris describes as faces literally looking back at
them. The skulls were crushed by the flagstones intentionally, like whoever had put
the flagstones and buildings here knew exactly what they were doing, placing them over
the burial ground, which in fairness is not the most respectful thing to do.
Within a small space of around three meters squared. Chris and his team
excavated in the region of thirty five to forty skeletons piled on top of each
other in what seemed to be quite shallow graves. This was just one of
several discoveries in another area where excavations were being done, with the team in
two raised platforms, again, they found that each one was filled with bodies.
They came to the conclusion that the whole area must have been filled the
same, and they surmised there had to have been around two thousand and five
hundred to three thousand remains in the entire cemetery. But this was not the
only find during excavations. A little bit later, Chris was summoned to a
body that would have the team were after uncovering, and what they found was
different than anything he had seen before. Let's just say that this corpse was
not buried in a respectful way and was quite a grizzly aggressive find. There
was a boulder placed in the grave and the legs were bent backwards around the
body. The strange thing was the boulders seemed to be placed to purposely disfigure
and deform the skeleton. Now usually burials are sacred, but this was different.
The body was deliberately broken, deformed, and crudely placed. The more
they dug, the more they found. The next find was just as a
stumishing. The body was broken and bound, and an amount of the skull
was a massive rock. Then they found another beside it the same grave,
buried with massive rocks in their mouths were two more skeletons. There has to
have been an explanation to why these remains were so brutally treated post mortem.
The three skeletons were removed for examination on What they found was that not only
in death where the bodies brutalized, but the same seems to have happened in
life, with chunks of bone in the skeleton chipped and hacked away as if
murdered and chopped by swords. This would stand true to the time where warfare
and battles were just part of daily life in society. It seems that for
whatever reason, people were scared of what would become of the bodies in the
afterlife, or even if they would rise again, and the stone in the
mouth was a preventative for the soul leaving the body. Similar burials were found
in the Czech Republic from in and around the same time period where bodies were
discovered weighed down with stones. Only those bodies also had massive nails embedded in
the heart, shoulders, and heels and nailed through the heart. That does
sound like a famous way of killing a certain supernatural being, right. The
general consensus is that people in the medieval times must have been afraid these people
would walk the earth again and were buried in such manners to stop this from
happening. One of the buddies that was removed with the stone in its mouth
was discovered after analysis to have been a male between thirty and thirty five years
old. He would have been a muscular man, shown by muscle markings on
the bones. That was all the bones were giving up for Nato. The
one thing that was noted about the placement of the bodies was that they were
at the edge of the graveyard, away from the other bodies, almost as
if they were banished, not fit to be buried with the rest of the
dead. This further reinforces the fat that the stones were intentionally and forcefully placed
in the dead bodies mouths. The name placed on burials like this are known
as deviant burials as the dediot from the normal Christian burial. This episode of
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I csc hi Lli dot com and now back to the show. Christianity is
one possible reason for deviant burials. When Christianity arrived in the UK and Ireland,
it was around six hundred and fifty a d. Which compares pretty well
to deviant burials of Cultitian and especially brutal debts and burials that are found at
this time, almost as if pre Christianity beliefs and worship were punished and considered
evil, therefore they would be desecrated a fear that they would return, and
the stones placed in their mouths, hearts being cut out, and rocks being
tied to distort the bodies was to stop the corpses coming back to harass gruttus
or loved ones. This is not uncommon either for medieval people to believe in
the occult or in dead. They had a strong belief in the supernatural that
the Church further instilled, with souls going to purgatory after death and evil souls
being tortured for eternity. Documents recovered from the medieval period tell stories of vampires
and the undead that predate what we currently know as vampires. There is a
tale from England from ten eighty five where two boys moved to the village of
Drapewell. Shortly after they moved and for unknown reasons, the two men were
murdered and buried, only to be seen two nights later, walking the graveyard
with their coffins on their backs. This sent shockwaves through the village, as
numerous people had witnessed the living dead walking revenants. Revenants are essentially the undead
that would return to hunt and harass the living, calling their names at the
witching arm, only for the people they would call to mysteriously die. Days
later, the majority of the villagers of Drapewell up and left, but the
few remaining got permission from the bishop to exhume the two bodies of the two
dead men. What is documented that they seen was shocking. The bodies were
untouched and still in the coffins, but the mouth of the cloth used to
cover their faces was ripped and fresh blood was around the mouth. The bodies
were immediately beheaded and the hearts removed and burnt on an open fire. It
was as if the dead bodies were executed after death, with two black crows
rising from the ground after the execution. Now this is documented, but obviously
has to be taken with a pinch of salt, But for the time this
also may have been very real and very fearful. Was this a similar fear
for the tree Cultitian bodies. This is just one of hundreds of similar stories
documented in Europe by scholars, monks, and priests. After further analysis on
the Cultician skeletons, carbon dating proved the bodies were dated to the late seventh
century, somewhere between seven twenty and seven fifty, several hundred years before any
other writings of vampire has existed. Strangely enough, there are penitential scripts from
the eighth century that state that anyone who believes in vampires or the living dead
should be banished from the church. So the belief in the undead must that
have been very strong at this time, as there was a need to put
it in writing. Archaeology and history overlapping to confirm this fact. John Burke,
the current owner of Guiltician, believes it is a very sacred place,
as did his father. He believes the buddies should be laid to rest in
respect, placed in the burials who are local ancestors of the time, and
he is privileged to have such a site on his land. Whether you wish
to believe this or not, it does not matter. These were buddies that
were actually discovered with documents to back possible reasons. One thing is certain though,
Something made their ancestors believe in vampires and the walking dead. And that
brings us to the end of another episode of ten podcast Lane And this is
a fun episode. I remember seeing something about this and time I just had
to investigate it a bit further because yeah, pretty crazy and not to do
with the normal true crime and all that, so a bit of a step
away both it's about to have a variation amory, and first and foremost,
I want to thank my son for the amazing intro seven years old and he
knocked out of the ballpark. And secondly, he'd like to thank the news
sponsor and mixed chili like literally hand on her best thought you're gonna have and
yeah, we're gonna have giveaways coming up as well, so I watch the
Instagram for that and more episodes coming next week as well, and try to
keep ahead and record ahead of time. So yeah, it shouldn't be too
much longer. There should be many big spaces look at at the episodes.
But then as always, I appreciate everyone, and also I've recently changed to
speaker from SoundCloud from my RSS feed for the podcast, so if you do
find that for some reason, you're unsubscribed for wherever you do subscribe from,
please resub and resubscribe again because yeah, that'd appreciate it. So until next
time, As always, aim for the bushes.