Polish scientists bring back face of mysterious 17th century 'vampire' woman
Scientists rebuilt face of young noble woman buried with anti-vampire items in northern Poland. Modern tech helped recreate appearance of 18-year old whose unusual burial showed deep fears of supernatural in 1600s
In northern Polandʼs Pien village archeologists made an odd find about 2 years ago — a young womans grave with strange items: a padlock fixed to her foot and iron sickle laying across her neck (items that people thought kept vampires in their graves)
The team named her “Zosia“ and found she was one of many so-called vampires in this unmarked graveyard. Swedish expert Oscar Nilsson used modern tech to show how she looked: “Its really weird — they did all they could to keep her dead but we worked hard to show her face again“
The dig team from Nicolaus Copernicus University found that Zosia was a rich girl who died around age 18; she had some health problems that made her faint and get bad headaches. These symptoms probably made other people think she wasnt normal: the 1600s were full of war and people got scared of anything different
These people burying her they did everything they could to prevent her from coming back — we have done everything we can to bring her back
The science work was super-detailed — they made a copy of her skull then built up clay muscles one-by-one. Near her grave they found:
- A child buried face-down with foot lock
- Special wood pieces that folks thought had magic powers
- Items showing she came from noble family
Nilsson wanted to show Zosia as just a normal person — not the monster people thought she was back then. He mixed old skull study methods with new 3d-printing tech to make her face look real-life: “When you know her story its really touching to see her face come back“
