Vampire Graves Found In Bulgaria

Vampires are everywhere now. With the release of the Twilight Saga movies, young people are latching on to the trend and are even biting one another and drinking human blood. With vampire popularity at an all-time high, it's no wonder that the discovery of a pair of vampire graves in Bulgaria has brought much attention to the small town of Sozopol in Bulgaria.

The two skeletons date back to around 700 years ago and have a giant iron rod pinning their chests down. The idea was to stop them from rising again.

"These people were believed to be evil while they were alive, and it was believed that they would become vampires once they are dead, continuing to torment people," Bozhidar Dimitrov, the director of the National Museum of History in Sofia, told a local newspaper.

The National Museum of History in Sofia is planning opening an exhibit to showcase the two skeletons.

The pair of vampire of graves is creating a surge of interest in tourism to Bulgaria according to local newspapers. Vampire lore is rooted in Slavic history, with the Translyvanian castle of Dracula being one of the most popular vampire-related destinations for tourism.

Other graves unearthed in Bulgaria contained around 100 skeletons believed to be vampires. These grave sites showed that the people had been stabbed so that they would not rise again.

"I do not know why an ordinary discovery like that became so popular. Perhaps because of the mysteriousness of the word vampire," Dimitrov told local paper Sega.

Interestingly enough, most of the skeletons were aristocrats and clerics, with no women among them.

Many times, alcoholics and criminals were believed to be candidates for vampirism, and the community took "proactive" measure against their rising again.