Several human skeletons from the 8th century have been found with large stones stuffed in their mouths, something researchers believe locals did to prevent the dead from returning to walk the Earth as zombies. The research began more than six years ago in what was supposed to be a study of medieval churches in County Roscommon, Ireland.

Some of the skeletons that were discovered in Ireland with plugs stuck in their mouths to prevent them from turning into zombies Dziiscovery: becoming zombies He said that among hundreds of other remains, two male skeletons, aged between 40 and 60, and the other of a young adult probably in his twenties, had been found.

One of them was lying with his head looking up. A large black ball had been deliberately pushed into his mouth. “The other one had his head tilted to the side and had an even larger plug jammed violently into his mouth, so that his jaws were almost dislocated,” he told Dziscovery News. The two men were lying next to each other and discovered themselves together.

The team first thought they had stumbled upon a Black Death cemetery where the remains of people buried in the Middle Ages had plugs stuck in their mouths because they were involved in vampire-slaying rituals. Around 3,000 skeletons buried between 700 and 1400 are believed to still be buried at the site.

The belief that zombies return from the earth as a way of life has its roots in Haitian culture, where it is compared to voodoo magic and witchcraft. Superstition is so strong on the Caribbean island that the relatives of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ will dismember a body so that it cannot return as a zombie. Others will stand guard on a wall to protect the body until decomposition begins. According to believers, a zombie will emerge from its cave following a hypothetical trail, capable of responding to stimuli but without self-awareness.

Initially, archaeologists believed that the ritual of placing a stop in the mouth could have been related to vampire killing, where a stake is placed in the heart of a victim. Vampires were believed to spread the plague and it was thought to place a plug next to the mouth to prevent it. Practitioners also believed that putting a bit in a body’s mouth would stop it. In 2009, the remains of a 60-year-old woman with a stone in her mouth were discovered on a 16th-century mountain on the Vedic island of Lazzaretto Nυovo.

But vampire culture did not evolve until the 16th century and therefore does not explain why they were found standing on skeletons dating back to the 8th century. “In this case, the mouth plugs could have acted as a barrier to prevent the revealed from returning from their graves,” Head said. The skeleton of a ‘vampire’ buried in the 16th century has been veiled as a museum exhibit.

Two years ago a collection of bopes was discovered in another Poland that bore the telltale marks of a vampire burial ritual. Experts determined that these were the remains of a man after the funeral in an open cemetery in the town of Kamie Pomorski. Now, they have been unveiled as the star attraction at the Kamie Museum of World History, as organizers are preparing an exclusive exhibit just for the vampire. The body was found with a stake through his leg and a small stone in his mouth. Vampire ‘experts’ said the stop had been sounded in the body’s mouth to prevent it from biting or sucking the blood of its victims. And the pierced thighs and the females, usually with iron spikes, were made to prevent the vampire from leaving their wings.