Vampire skeletons in Bulgaria

[Moonshadow]

In the news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18334106

The iron stake sounds like a great idea to me. There are plenty of people I'd like to make sure don't come back.

[Monster Bob]

Pull the stakes! 

[Wolf Man]

They not only pinned them down with long steel spikes to keep them from rising up from the dead but they would sometimes bury them face down so if they tried to dig their way out they would just dig deeper down.  Very cool huh?  Did any of them sparkle?

[charp13]

Interesting story, Moonshadow! I guess I should start reading BBC News! I would also be tempted to pull out the stake! Can you imagine what would happen if the skeleton sat up and screamed?? I wish one of those Bulgarian scientists would take a chance    What's the worst that can happen?

[Dr. Madd]

While I was at Pinson Mounds in Jackson Tennessee a few weeks ago, They had two rattles made from human skulls that were tied onto a man's knees when they buried him. They thought the man might have been a shaman or a dancer,  I suggested to the Park Ranger there that perhaps the Hopewell people who lived there and made the mounds didn't want the guy to get up, so they tied the rattles to him to warn them if he moved. He raised his eyebrows and said he'd never heard that as a possibility.

[Wolf Man]

I have often wondered about my antique "vampire" stake.  It has blood on it and I have owned it for over thirty years.  I purchased it from an antigue dealer who could not remember where he got it as he had it for a long time, that was his story anyway.  This is made of wood and I always wondered if it was just a novelty but it could very well be a real artifact after reading that article.

[Count_Zirock]

I have often wondered about my antique "vampire" stake.  It has blood on it and I have owned it for over thirty years.  I purchased it from an antigue dealer who could not remember where he got it as he had it for a long time, that was his story anyway.  This is made of wood and I always wondered if it was just a novelty but it could very well be a real artifact after reading that article.

I doubt very much it's genuine. A genuine vampire-killing stake would be left in the suspected corpse. Stakes are meant to just pin the vampire into its coffin, so that its head can be cut off and the mouth stuffed with garlic or wolfsbane. The stake might then be removed, only if the heart was cut out and burned, too. Most likely, you have an old Halloween decoration or a stage prop. If it's a stage prop, too bad he didn't have a COA or pix of it in use.

[Wolf Man]

Can't really question its authenticity without seeing it or most importantly smelling the blood odor.  I am in Emergency Services and have confirmed very old blood stains on the piece.  Let me clarify, human blood.  There is no explanation to go with the piece why there is human blood on it but it is clearly not stage blood ( I have one of those prop pieces as well with fake blood ).  The antique dealer did not even know it had blood on it.  I noticed it and the odor so had it tested by a friend at a hospital.  They were quite taken by it and when I had it on display at my store there were so many customers who tried to buy it I had to remove it from the display case and take it back home for fear one of my employees would mistakenly sell it and it would be lost forever. 

[Count_Zirock]

Can't really question its authenticity without seeing it or most importantly smelling the blood odor.  I am in Emergency Services and have confirmed very old blood stains on the piece.  Let me clarify, human blood.  There is no explanation to go with the piece why there is human blood on it but it is clearly not stage blood ( I have one of those prop pieces as well with fake blood ).  The antique dealer did not even know it had blood on it.  I noticed it and the odor so had it tested by a friend at a hospital.  They were quite taken by it and when I had it on display at my store there were so many customers who tried to buy it I had to remove it from the display case and take it back home for fear one of my employees would mistakenly sell it and it would be lost forever.

Sure I can question it! It could be anything from the former property of a blood fetishist, to a murder weapon that somehow escaped police evidence lockup. Again, even you don't know. All you know is that it's covered in human blood. Maybe that antique dealer offed an employee he caught with his/her hand in the till!

It's certainly a fascinating piece, but piece of what, exactly? If you get the chance to post some pix, I'd be very curious to see it.

[Dr. Madd]

Or, it could have been a souvenir taken from a real Vampire hunt. I myself would not be surprised if that was the case. I own an East German officer's dagger with blood stains on it.

[Count_Zirock]

Or, it could have been a souvenir taken from a real Vampire hunt.

"Do you believe in vampires, little boy?" - Bernard Fein, The Night Stalker
It couldn't have come from "a real Vampire hunt." Vampires aren't real. If that thing was ever used on an actual person, it's either a murder weapon or, at the very least, responsible for the desecration of a corpse.

[Wolf Man]

Or, it could have been a souvenir taken from a real Vampire hunt. I myself would not be surprised if that was the case. I own an East German officer's dagger with blood stains on it.

That is a good possibility that I had not thought of. Hmm.  I have both a German close combat dagger with blood stains on it, plus, my Grandfathers WWII M3 fighting knife with blood on it and an Italian Fascist WWII knife with blood on it.  There is no stain quite like a blood stain and again, the smell.  My Grandfathers knife though was used by my Dad for not only hunting but also cleaning fish so not much chance of ever figuring out if it once had human blood on it besides my Dad cutting himself which I am sure he was prone to do on occasion. 

I looked for a photo of this but although I found picures of my knives, lightsabers, swords, guns, canes, and all sorts of other things I collect I can't find a photo of my stake.  I know I took one with two of my knives on either side so perhaps it is on my external hard drive or one of my thumb drives or even on my old computer, can't remember.  I will keep looking though, now it is bugging me.

[Wolf Man]

Can't see it that well but this was the best picture I could find at the moment.  It is in the glass case far right on the table.

[Count_Zirock]

That's some cool swag on that table!
Yeah, can't tell much from that particular photo. That style is fairly nondescript, so it's hard to tell what it might be from.

[Fester]

Well, Provenance is everything.
If you do not have documentation as to its source and the context in which it was found, you have nothing really to support its authenticity.
Sure there are blood stains, and those can probably be substantiated.  However, whose blood will probably not be possible.  Human A, B, O or AB--could be determined, forget Rh factor-That only happens in cop shows with mood lighting in their crime labs and/or perky goth lab techs.   Maybe if there is a large enough sample available, a Polymerease Chain Reaction (PCR) test could determine some genetic info.  But do you want to spend several hundred dollars and about a month wait to have the sample tested?

Even if you had it tested, you probably won't learn anything really useful.   How many people have handled it?  Did 100% of those handling it wear gloves?  Everyone that touched it has added to the contamination of the original sample.
You've got a cool and spooky piece there.  But no way of determining its authenticity or even origins because there is no verifiable history to it.