Buried Polish 'Vampires' Likely Had Cholera

Nov 26, 2014 02:30 PM ET // by Rossella Lorenzi  

                      A 30-39 year old "vampire" female, buried with a sickle placed across the neck.



“Vampires” buried in northwestern Poland with large stones wedged into their mouths or sickles over their necks were local people probably affected by cholera, says the first biogeochemical study of human skeletal remains from deviant burials.
The study investigated 285 human skeletons which were excavated between 2008-2012 from a post medieval cemetery in Drawsko, a rural settlement site in northwestern Poland. Dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, the remains represented individuals of all ages and both sexes.

Among the interments, six were identified as so-called vampire burials. They included an adult male, a late adolescent female, three adult females, and a younger person of unknown sex.

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“Of these six individuals, five were interred with a sickle placed across the throat or abdomen, intended to remove the head or open the gut should they attempt to rise from the grave,” Lesley Gregoricka from University of South Alabama and colleagues, wrote in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
The remaining two people were found with large stones positioned beneath their chins -- evidence, the researchers say, that it was feared the individuals would rise from their graves to bite others.
Gregoricka and colleagues first hypothesized the people buried as vampires were targeted because of their outsider status as immigrants.
Indeed, abundant written evidence for the post-medieval period describes many waves of immigrants entering into Poland during that time.

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To test their hypothesis, the researchers tested permanent molars from 60 individuals, including the six "vampires,” using radiogenic strontium isotope ratios from archaeological dental enamel. Local animals, including hare, mice and fox, were also sampled.
“While historic records describe the many potential reasons why some people were considered at increased risk of becoming a vampire, no previous study had attempted to examine the identity of these individuals using chemical analyses of the human skeleton,” Gregoricka told Discovery News.

Strontium isotopes incorporated into teeth during growth and development can tell about the place someone grew up, whether the individual moved later and whether the person was buried somewhere different from where they spent their childhood.
"Contrary to our hypothesis, we found that all of the vampires were local," Gregoricka said.

 "We actually found others in the cemetery that were non-local to the region, but were not buried as vampires," she added.

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According to the researchers, there should be another reason for the deviant burials, since the targeted individuals were not suspected of becoming vampires due to their identity as non-locals.
Gregoricka and colleagues propose cholera epidemics as an alternative explanation.
Multiple waves of cholera epidemics struck Europe during the post-medieval period, but people were unaware that cholera was a bacteria spread through contaminated drinking water.
“There was no scientific understanding of how infectious disease was spread. Instead, because they couldn’t explain it, they attributed cholera to the supernatural -- specifically, to vampires,” Gregoricka said.

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In this view, the first person to die in an epidemic was thought to seek revenge on the living by returning from the grave to inflict the illness upon others, causing the disease to spread.
“As such, if these six individuals were the first to die in a series of cholera outbreaks that affected Drawsko during the post-medieval period, they may have been buried in this way as a means of preventing them from returning as vampires and attacking the living,” Gregoricka said.
“Disease is often discussed as a possible cause for deviant burials in Europe," said biological anthropologist Kristina Killgrove. "In the case of these post-medieval Polish burials, cholera certainly could be an explanation."
“Unfortunately, cholera leaves no marks on bone, so it's not possible to tell by looking at the skeletons whether or not they suffered from the disease,” she added.

source :  http://bit.ly/15FUqdr

Not Many People Know About The City 1200 Feet Below Detroit

(N.Morgan) Detroit has been one of the cities hit hardest by recession.However, at one point in its history, Detroit had a very large working class industry right under their feet, underneath their city’s streets.

Some in the conspiracy area feel these tunnel possess a far more sinister reason for their existence, to hide and shelter the elite in Teotwawki (The end of the world as we know it). Detroit had a very large salt mine that was basically an underground industry underneath their city. It was over 1,500 acres big and had over 100 miles of roads making up this underground salt mine.

 

This mine stretches from Dearborn all the way to Allen Park.

The mines were owned and operated by The Detroit Salt and Manufacturing Company. It was booming from the early 1920s up until 1983, when it was forced to close due to the falling salt prices. When business was good, they offered public guided tours, which was very popular with school groups. You can still see the entrance at 12841 Sanders Street, but it’s only open for delivery trucks. Read further to see exactly what they are delivering.

By 1914, the Detroit mine was producing 8,000 tons of rock salt each month, mainly for the leather and food processing industries. An increase in manpower, money and equipment was paying off in a big way. Workers turned electric locomotives, mechanical shovels and electric power to help alleviate the physical demands of mining. These advancements in technology pushed the Detroit mine to even greater productivity.

 

In 1922, the company began to dig a larger, second shaft to increase the rate of hoisting rock salt to the surface. Within three years, the second shaft was in operation, leaving the first shaft to haul men and materials. Every piece of equipment used today has been lowered down the second shaft. Due to the shaft’s narrow openings, most equipment is disassembled and lowered piece by piece, then reassembled in a machine shop below.

In 1983, International Salt closed the mine’s operations. Two years after the closure, Crystal Mines, Inc., purchased the mine as a potential storage site. In 1997, the Detroit Salt Company, LLC, purchased the mine from Crystal Mines, Inc. and began salt production in the fall of 1998. Although the leather and food industries were once large customers to the Detroit mine, road deicing salt is the only product the mine currently provides.  The Detroit Salt Company, LLC, employs the latest mining techniques, making it one of the safest, most modern and efficient mine in the world. 

Rare Jewish prayer book predates oldest known Torah scroll

Scholars are calling a rare Hebrew text dating back to the 9th century the earliest known Jewish prayer book, predating the world's oldest Torah scroll.
The 50-page book is 4.3 inches tall and about 4 inches wide and is written in an archaic form of Hebrew, on pages of aged parchment. The text includes 100 Jewish blessings and discusses topics such as the apocalyptic tale of the End Times and the Passover Seder.
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Carbon testing dates the prayer book to the year 840, which is 300 to 400 years before the oldest known Torah scroll from the 12th and 13th centuries.
"This find is historical evidence supporting the very fulcrum of Jewish religious life," said Jerry Pattengale, executive director of the Green Scholars Initiative, the group that announced the find. "This Hebrew prayer book helps fill the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries of Jewish texts from the ninth and tenth centuries."
"This was a liturgical set of prayers, hymns and poems used for various occasions," Pattengale told the Huffington Post. "The prayer book is really what most of the Jewish community would be in touch with on a daily basis, [creating] a connection between the Bible and their daily worship."
The book is the Jewish equivalent of an early complete edition of the Christian Book of Common Prayer.
Started by the Green family of the retail chain Hobby Lobby, the Green Scholar's Initiative is the research arm of The Green Collection, one of the world's largest private collections of biblical texts and artifacts containing more than 40,000 items.
The prayer book which was purchased from a private collector will be on display in a yet-to-be named biblical museum set to open in March 2017 in Washington, D.C.

Archaeologists Stumble Across a Hoard of Gold

A cache of medieval Arab gold coins may already be the largest in the eastern Mediterranean, and there's probably more to come.

 An unprecedented discovery of more than 2,000 gold coins off the north-central coast of Israel might be part of the largest gold hoard ever found in the eastern Mediterranean, according to archaeologists.

 The coins are identified as dinars, the official currency of the Fatimid caliphate that ruled much of the Mediterranean from A.D. 909 to 1171.

 The find was made by accident in early February, when a team of six sport divers spotted what they initially thought were a few toy coins on the seabed near the ancient harbor of Caesarea. After realizing the significance of the find, they immediately notified the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Divers from the IAA's Marine Archaeology Unit accompanied the group back to the site and were stunned at what they found.

"We were told [that the divers] had found about 30 or 40 coins," says Jakob (Koby) Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit. "Usually that means you've found a hoard. So we went back and performed a small excavation. After two hours, we had found something like one thousand coins.

"We were shocked," he recalls. "We were so incredibly excited, but when you're underwater, you can't talk to each other. It was only when we surfaced and pulled out our regulators that we could scream with happiness."

But that was just the beginning: Another thousand coins were recovered from the site just this Tuesday, which already makes the find at least five times as large as what has until now been considered the largest known gold coin hoard ever found in the country—a cache of 376 Fatimid dinars discovered in the city of Ramle in the early 1960s—and possibly the largest cache of gold coins ever reported in the eastern Mediterranean.

A Fistful of Dinars

Though the discovery of gold always captures the imagination, it's the historical value of the cache that has researchers dazzled.

Fatimid dinars feature the names of the caliphs they were minted under, as well as the date and location where they were minted. "They're first-class historical documents," explains Robert Kool, curator of the IAA's Coin Department.

At its height in the mid-tenth to mid-eleventh centuries A.D., Fatimid rule stretched across North Africa and Sicily to the Levant, with trade ties that extended all the way to China. From its capital in Cairo, the caliphate controlled access to gold from sources in West Africa to the Mediterranean, and the currency crafted from the precious metal conveyed the Fatimids' formidable power and wealth.

A cursory study reveals that the earliest coin from the hoard was minted in Palermo, Sicily, while the majority came from official Fatimid mints in Egypt and other parts of North Africa and date to the reigns of Caliphs al-Hakim (A.D. 996-1021) and his son al-Zahir (A.D. 1021-1036). The coins are of two different denominations—whole dinars and quarter dinars—and are of various weights and sizes. Initial tests indicate that they are 24-karat gold with a purity of upwards of 95 percent.

"The amount of currency minted under the Fatimids is truly staggering," says Kool, who notes that as late as 1120 the caliphate's treasury was said to hold around 12 million dinars. "It was truly a monetary society. People got paid."

Thanks to detailed historical accounts and treasure troves of contemporary documents, we know how much people were paid at the time. The average monthly wage of an unskilled worker was around one dinar a month, according to Kool.

Some of the recovered coins appear to be in "mint" condition, but others had obviously been in circulation for some time. Several of the coins show tooth marks, where skeptical merchants employed a "bite test" to assess the authenticity of properly pure Fatimid gold.

Questions, Excavation, and Answers

Now researchers must figure out why such a large amount of currency was found on the seafloor so far off the coast. Sharvit is confident that the hoard is from a shipwreck and suggests several scenarios, including that the coins belong to a merchant ship or may be associated with a tax payment on its way to Cairo. (Read more about shipwrecks.)

Based on the lack of small denominations or even clippings of coins that would be used for average transactions, Kool agrees that the cache was serving an official purpose: "This was no day-to-day money."

The area in the harbor where the coins were found has been declared a closed excavation area, and Sharvit's team plans to return to the site after an incoming storm passes through, possibly early next week. Ironically, it is believed that an earlier storm exposed the cache in the first place.

Meanwhile, researchers at the IAA will have their hands full with studying the thousands of coins already recovered. "They've got a good find there," says Michael L. Bates, curator emeritus of Islamic coins at the American Numismatic Society, who notes that a hoard of this size can provide unusual insight into many aspects of the economy, including the systems of coin production, the distribution of coins in circulation at the time, and how long they stayed in circulation.

"Heart of Gold"

Authorities are quick to point out that the sport divers who first reported the discovery deserve the highest praise, not just from the scientific community but also from the public in general. Even though under Israeli law all antiquities found in the country belong to the state, and removing, selling, or failing to report a find can be punished with up to five years in jail, looting of archaeological sites remains a significant problem.

"[The divers] discovered the gold and have a heart of gold that loves the country and its history," says Sharvit.

For diver Yoav Lavi, who, along with Zvika Fayer, Kobi Twina, Avivit Fishler, Joel Miller, and Shai Milner, discovered and reported the remarkable gold cache, the excitement at the moment of discovery was reward enough. "In fact, it was my birthday," Lavi recalls, "and I thought to myself, is this what Gollum [from The Hobbit] felt when he found the Ring? 

 source: nationalgeographic.com/

Things I will not be doing:

How to Start a Conversation with New People

Whether you are a host or a guest, there are many social situations that will call for interaction, even when you are stumped for some way to get it going. For example, you might want to help a friend’s new “significant other” feel comfortable. Or, you might see a stranger across a crowded room, and realize that this is your only chance to impress Mr. or Ms. Wonderful. Then, you realize that you’re not sure what to say.

1. Start with a “hello,” and simply tell the new person your name then ask them theirs. Offer your hand to shake, upon his/her responding to you. (If you go to other countries, greet the person in tune with the particular culture). If you already know the person, skip this step and proceed to step.
2. Look around. See if there is anything worth pointing out. Sure, talking about the weather is a cliche, but if there’s something unusual about it–bam!–you’ve got a great topic of conversation.
3. Offer a compliment. Don’t lie and say you love someone’s hair when you think it’s revolting, but if you like his or her shoes, or a handbag, say so. A sincere compliment is a wonderful way to get someone to warm up to you. But be careful not to say something so personal that you scare the person off or make him or her feel uncomfortable. It is best not to compliment a person’s looks or body.
4. Ask questions! Most people love to talk about themselves — get them going. “What classes are you taking this year?” “Have you seen (Insert-Something-Here)? What did you think of it?” Again, keep the questions light and not invasive. Do not ask too many questions if he or she is not responsive to them.
5. Jump on any conversation-starters he or she might offer; take something he or she has said and run with it. Agree, disagree, ask a question about it, or offer an opinion, just don’t let it go by without notice.
6. Look your newfound friend in the eye, it engenders trust (but don’t stare). Also, use the person’s name a time or two during the conversation; it will help you remember the name, and will draw the person’s attention to what you are talking about.
7. Don’t forget to smile and have fun with your conversation!

Tips

• Just relax. Chances are that whatever small-talk you’re making isn’t going to stick out in anyone’s mind a few months from now. Just say whatever comes into your head, so long as it’s not offensive or really weird. (Unless, of course, the person you’re attempting to converse with is into weird stuff.)
• Remember, if you think of something in your head while you’re talking, it’s probably related.
• It will help if you watch some TV, listen to radio shows, and/or read a lot — newspapers, magazines, and/or books. You need to have some idea of what is going on in the world. Also remember and plan to share anything you like, think is funny, or find intriguing. This is building up your own library of things that might be helpful to another person during a conversation someday. It will be amazing how you thread these interesting things when you least expect it, and make conversation an adventure instead of a dreadful task. If you take it to the next step and say things that you want the person to think of as adding value, and keep to yourself things that the person might not, you are actually honing your own personality to be appealing to the other person, and what is a greater act of kindness than that.
• If you are shy, it will be helpful to have thought about a topic or two that you could talk about.
• Follow the lead that your listener is expressing. If he or she appears interested, then continue. If he or she is looking at a clock or watch, or worse, looking for an escape strategy, then you have been going on for too long.
• Interesting and funny quotes or facts can lighten things up, and make way for things to talk about. You could also use a set of conversation starter question cards for inspiration.
• If talking over the phone, keep the person involved in the conversation at all costs. If you can’t come up with a good topic, try the “questions” game. Just keep asking them questions; random questions work just fine as long as they are appropriate. This technique can save a phone conversation. The questions should be open ended questions that do not require a yes or no answer. For example “How do you know the hosts?” This way you can ask questions about what they just said or follow up with how you know the hosts (for example) instead of acting as if the conversation is an interrogation.
• Half of an effective conversation is the way you non-verbally communicate, and not necessarily what you say. Practice better non-verbal skills that are friendly and confident.
• Read newspapers and magazines to increase your knowledge so you can have more interesting things to talk about