00:00A young woman, once dazzlingly beautiful, was discovered numb with a huge fossil through her neck.
00:06No sign of violence or crime was found.
00:10Yet, the fear had manifestly pushed someone to lock her in this grave,
00:16going so far as to attach a lock to the toe of her left foot.
00:20He wanted to keep her forever in this grave, fearing that she would not get up to atone for her revenge.
00:27An entire community would have allied themselves to a young woman under 20,
00:32assuming that she represented a mortal danger.
00:35Do you see where we want to go with this?
00:37Let's test your historical knowledge.
00:40Who, over the centuries, has aroused such a fear that even her death was not enough to appease the fear of the population?
00:49If you think of wizards, witches and other vampires, you are absolutely right.
00:53A small parenthesis is necessary.
00:55When you can't physically dominate someone, you can try to do it by supernatural means.
01:00At least, it was a widespread belief in the 17th century.
01:05In addition to the fossil and the lock, clues indicate an attempt to turn the corpse upside down.
01:12This effort failed, leaving the spine of the deceased twisted and deformed.
01:17By the way, the lock was not necessarily intended to lock a vampire,
01:21but was probably used as a talisman to repel evil spirits.
01:27This is a singularly cruel way to bury a person.
01:30However, this process was common to arrange so-called anti-vampire graves.
01:36The techniques used to prevent the resurrection of these creatures were particularly sophisticated.
01:41Allow us to introduce a concept.
01:43Anti-vampire graves, also called coming-back graves, date back several millennia
01:49and have been put to use in various places throughout Europe.
01:53Europe, of course.
01:55Before telling you, but vampires?
01:58It's a Romanian specialty, Dracula and company.
02:01Zrenia, let us show you the opposite.
02:03These creatures belong to all of European folklore,
02:07which means that there are traces of them throughout Europe.
02:10With the establishment of new colonies in America,
02:13vampire stories have also spread there,
02:16evolving until the birth of the Twilight saga.
02:19These so-called anti-vampire graves are distinguished by the visible precautions
02:24taken to prevent the deceased from coming back from among the dead.
02:27One could, for example, place heavy stones on the legs of the deceased
02:30or pierce his body with a spear to anchor it to the ground.
02:34For more security, one sometimes considered separating the head from the rest of the body.
02:38Thus, burying a body face down,
02:41cutting off his head or keeping it under a stone were common practices
02:45to prevent a person perceived as possessed from leaving his grave.
02:49Let's go back to this unfortunate young woman.
02:51Two archaeologists, Dariusz Polinsky and Magda Zagrodzka,
02:55partners in science as in life,
02:57discovered her grave by chance.
02:59Curiously, these two blood-soaked bones remained intact.
03:04However, no tombstone, no name,
03:07absolutely nothing indicated her identity.
03:10Only an isolated tomb on a hill in northern Poland.
03:15Polinsky, professor of archaeology, and Zagrodzka
03:18worked to reconstruct the story of this young woman
03:21whom they decided to name Zosia.
03:23A carbon dating revealed that she was about 18 years old when she died,
03:28about 350 years ago,
03:30at a time of turmoil in Poland.
03:32A document exists on this cemetery,
03:34which seems to have served as a last refuge
03:36for individuals living on the margins of society.
03:40Was Zosia a poor young girl,
03:42rejected by her parents due to cruel circumstances?
03:45Not exactly.
03:47By digging deeper into their research,
03:49archaeologists discovered clues suggesting that she belonged to a wealthy family.
03:54Her grave contained a sophisticated headdress,
03:57and the fine silk, as well as the silver and gold beads that adorned it,
04:01suggested that it was a refined headdress.
04:04These elements indicate that she enjoyed a certain status,
04:08or a privileged position.
04:10The way she was buried clearly reflected her status as a marginal
04:14within the village of Piena.
04:16Her presence there may have been undesirable,
04:19which would explain the accusation of vampirism,
04:22reinforced by the brutal way in which she was forced into her grave
04:25and kept captive.
04:27By studying the structure of her skull,
04:29and extracting DNA from her bones,
04:32scientists were able to reconstruct a possible image of her face.
04:36Specialists patiently sculpted Zosia's lephigy
04:39using clay on a 3D-printed model of her skull,
04:43a process that proved to be profoundly moving.
04:46They pointed out that,
04:48although they often carry out facial reconstructions,
04:51they were also here to give her some dignity.
04:54Thanks to these three techniques, DNA analysis,
04:573D printing and clay sculpting,
04:59the team gave back a face to Zosia,
05:01missing for four centuries,
05:03thus highlighting the human history
05:05hidden behind her supernatural beliefs.
05:08Ironic, isn't it?
05:10First, everything had been done to erase her face from the collective memory
05:13and prevent it from returning one day.
05:16400 years later,
05:17we used it to bring her back to life.
05:20Today, her portrait is everywhere on the Internet.
05:23But the faces of those who buried her will remain unknown forever.
05:27Alas, this reconstruction project only allows a visual link with Zosia,
05:31while her true story remains a mystery.
05:35What we do know, however,
05:37is that the individuals perceived as vampires
05:39were the subject of terrible discrimination.
05:42Rumors even claimed that these hungry creatures
05:44took away humans to quench their thirst.
05:47But let's examine this idea from a mathematical angle
05:49to demonstrate the absurdity of this legend
05:52and prove that Zosia was not one of them.
05:55In 1600, the world population was only 537 million people.
06:01Of course, these numbers are not quite accurate,
06:04but they are close to reality.
06:06The physicist Costa Seftimiu calculated that
06:09if a vampire bit a person every month,
06:12humanity would have disappeared in a few years.
06:15With a starting population of 537 million in 1600
06:19and a single vampire,
06:21this calculation indicates that there would no longer be a single human in July 1602.
06:25And yet, we are here today.
06:28Placing a stone on a corpse to prevent a vampire from rising
06:31is perhaps a practice that surprises you.
06:34But there are also many stereotypes about these creatures
06:37that you certainly know,
06:39such as the use of garlic or the lack of reflection in mirrors.
06:43Curiously, although these superstitions
06:45are based on unfounded beliefs,
06:47there is a logical explanation for the association of vampires with garlic.
06:51The latter contains a compound,
06:53lysine, which is a powerful antibiotic.
06:56Even if people at the time ignored what an antibiotic was,
06:59they noticed that garlic was effective against various diseases.
07:03They also thought that vampires were born from a specific blood disorder,
07:07which led them to believe that garlic could neutralize them.
07:11In addition, there really is a blood affection called porphyry,
07:16which gives those who suffer from it an appearance evoking that of vampires.
07:20Their skin is pale and their teeth appear larger
07:23as their gums retract.
07:26In addition, people affected by porphyry cannot consume garlic,
07:31because it aggravates their condition.
07:33What a fascinating coincidence!
07:36Another more recent superstition
07:38concerns the version of vampires for mirrors.
07:41The first mention of this idea appears in the novel Dracula,
07:45published in 1897.
07:48But why would a vampire not have a reflection?
07:51It's quite simple.
07:53Before the age of plastic, mirrors were covered with silver,
07:56a material associated with the rejection of the forces of evil.
08:00Silver was often perceived as a repulsive against evil spirits,
08:04perhaps because of its antimicrobial properties.
08:07As for garlic, its healing qualities
08:09could have inspired the idea that it frightened vampires.
08:12Another possible explanation of this superstition
08:15is that affections such as porphyry or rage,
08:18often confused with vampirism,
08:21altered the appearance of the sick.
08:23They may have avoided looking at each other in a mirror
08:26because of these changes,
08:28which could have fed the idea that vampires fled their own reflection.
08:32And if you ever come across a vampire whose methods do not dissuade,
08:36here is an additional tip.
08:38Ask him to count.
08:40It can be grains of rice, beans,
08:42or even the meshes of a net of fish,
08:45if you have one at hand.
08:47Vampires, it seems, are obsessed with numbers,
08:50which will divert them from their goal until sunrise.
08:53And we know that vampires do not appreciate the light of day.
08:57Ironically, of all the puppets of the Sesame Street,
09:01it is the vampire tale that teaches us to count.
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