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We are, we are. We are Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate, Cultivate,
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we are Cultivate. Hello, and welcome to Yield Crime, where
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we discuss the funny, strange, and obscure crimes of yesteryear.
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I'm your host, Lindsay Valenti, and with me is my
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sister and co host Mattie Stangel.
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Hello.
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Hi, we are surrounded by our furry children this sunny
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Sunday afternoon.
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Yes, my furry child is like, ma'am, ma'am.
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Like, hey, you're doing something that doesn't concern me, pay
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attention to me.
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Now.
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She knows we're going somewhere, and she's doing everything she
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can to be as clean as possible, which I understand
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because I am gonna feel like a monster dropping her
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off on Thursday.
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Yeah, I bet my partner left for three weeks to
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this morning. We left out two of his stinkiest sweatshirts
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for his baby boy chief to sleep on while he's gone,
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because we're gonna have a really fun interaction when he
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comes home.
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With a new dog.
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That's right, huh so uh yeah, just gearing up for that.
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Lots of that's a little comforts and pets and maybe
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some calming pheromone spray will be purchased in the house
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inactive in the house before he comes back, so.
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That makes sense.
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Yeah, all right.
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When this comes out, it will be the tail end
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of the last sale at our Tea public shop this month.
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So the last sale is February seventeenth through the twenty third,
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so you can You'll still have a couple of days
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to enjoy thirty five percent off everything in the store.
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So if there's something you've been like, I want that,
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go do it.
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Yeah, treat yourself because the seventeenth, which is tomorrow for
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us in the past, that's my diabetiversary. So treat yourself, celebrate,
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celebrate not having diabetes or having diabetes, whichever in a
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fun shirt Scully something treat Yourself.
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Or our Perpetually Moist design, which is on one.
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I like the Danger Grass, the Danger the Prairie Grass one.
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It's funny that you say that because I got a
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message from our friend Dustin sometime last week and he
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said that he bought the Death Grass one stop so
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he was rocking his Death Grass shirt.
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So that's so fun Thank you so much, Dustin.
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Thanks Dustin. You need to share a picture because I
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love that design and I love you so I.
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Love you too sharing.
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Yeah, this sale is a diabetiversary sale unofficially.
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And you won't know that until it is started.
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But that's fine, it's fine.
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You don't need to know. No, te public doesn't need
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to know. It's a little secret between us. It's how
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we know that you actually listen.
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Yeah, mm hmmm mm hmmmmmmm hm.
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So I unintentionally stuck with the paranormal ish theme oo
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with this week's topic, which we will be discussing Poland's
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fields of vampires.
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Oh ooh, this is going to be really interesting but
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also probably gross, not too gros yes, yes, o, yes, yeah,
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I just that area in vampires. They were pretty pretty
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swift and harsh.
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I remember, yeah, I remember correctly. Yeah, nipped that in
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the bud m hmm.
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Information was pulled from the following sources. A twenty twenty
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four Archaeology News Online article by Dario Radley, twenty twenty
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four CNN article by Katie Hunt, twenty twenty four Daily
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Mail article by Harry Howard, twenty twenty four Daily Mail
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article by Jonathan Chadwick, twenty twenty four Express article by
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Rebecca Robinson twenty twenty four. Lit Hub article by Ed Simon,
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twenty twenty four, Reuter's article by Thomas Holdstock twenty twenty three,
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Indy one hundred posts by Alex Daniel twenty twenty three,
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mirror posts by Ryan fahey Fahi one of those. Twenty
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twenty two Art's article by Victoria Greenboy and Rich, twenty seventeen,
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Smithsonian Magazine article by Joshua Rapp Learn twenty fifteen, Lund
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Archaeological Review article by LESSEG. Gardela twenty fourteen Givesmoto article
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by George Dvorski and a History UK article.
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Say soah, and twenty twenty four was quite the year.
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To I think we missed the.
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Year to the Year of vampires. Apparently we missed Empires. Wow,
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who know, not me missed it?
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We know now, I guess.
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Hindsight is always twenty twenty.
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It really is.
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Yeah, and thank you so much to carry in for
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her research. Assistance for this episode and links to all
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of these articles will be included in the show notes.
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We wouldn't be here without support from listeners like you.
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If you're interested in supporting us financially, you can leave
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a one time or monthly donate over on buy me
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a Coffee or our Vemo page. Links are in the
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show notes, and we make a point of reaching out
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to send you a thank you note and stickers to
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show our appreciation.
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Want to show your support in a more concrete way,
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pick up some yield crime merch over at our tea
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public shop. We shout out whenever there is a sale
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each month, and we work to make sure we're creating
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new designs and changing it up whenever possible.
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And hey, thanks for listening. All right, picture this. Imagine
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you were out with your partner excavating with a trowel
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on a hill when you suddenly hear the sound of
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its striking metal odd right.
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Okay, yeah, I mean, unless you're taken for treasure.
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You're there for a reason. But even otter, and one
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would argue more horrifying would be to then clear away
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some of the soil and debris to discover that what
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you've uncovered is a body, but not just anybody, one
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with a sickle over its neck and an iron padlock
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on its toe.
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Mmm. I remember those legends. Yep, mm hmm.
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You discovered a vampire body, A says nec did vampire
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body mm hmmm, a sickle on.
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The neck, like around the neck, So if they would
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have tried to sit up, it would have decapitated them.
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Dang h and I bet they made those really sharp too.
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Mm hmm.
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Yeah, they got body.
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Yeah, So this was the reality a professor Darius Polinski
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and his partner Magda Zagradska in twenty twenty two outside
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the village of pn in northern Poland, where they had
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been working. They couldn't have known at the time was
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that their innocent discovery would uncover something much darker, the
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grave vampire quote unquote what now understandably. Archaeologists from Torrean's
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Nikolaus Copernicus University who were part of Darius's team, wanted
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to know more about the eighteen to twenty year old
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woman who would go on to be named Zosha. After
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uncovering the rest of her remains, which would go on
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to reveal that she had passed over four hundred years
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ago in the seventeenth century, they discovered a possible deformity
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on her breastbone that would have not only caused her
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constant and severe pain, but would have raised fears that
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she was a vampire. Okay, analysis of her skull led
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the team to believe she may have suffered from a
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health condition that caused severe headaches and even fainting. She
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also had a protruding tooth, so she had some physical deformities.
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Yeah, so she was a little different looking, is what
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it sounds like.
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When she was found, Zosha had a cap on her
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head made of silk fabric and metallic threads of silver
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and gold, which meant she would have been someone of
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high social status despite her deformities.
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Okay.
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DNA and chemical isotopes were used to learn more about her,
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and due to the fact that she passed away amidst
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the Swedish Polish Wars, researchers speculate that she may have
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originated in southern Scandinavia and been Swedish, thus marking her
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as a quote unquote unwonted outsider in the region.
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Hmm. But then why was she buried in such finery.
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I don't know they respected her enough to bury her
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well ish, you know, aside from the whole your vampire thing.
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Yeah, and according to an article by CNN, quote in
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the seventeenth century, was also in the grip of what's
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known as the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling
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that in some places led to crop failure and famine
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end quote. So keep that in mind. So factoring in
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the time of her death, the placement of the sickle
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over her neck and the padlock on her left big
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toe would have been used as a sort of double
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protection to ensure she couldn't rise from the grave. The
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significance of the padlock on the big toe is believed
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to symbolize the closing of her life cycle, and the
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fact that both were made from iron, which was thought
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to protect against the supernatural.
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It'd be funny if, ironically they used like limestone, because
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like lime is supposed to be like super conductive, like
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instant vampire creation.
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Darius doesn't believe that the sickle and padlock were placed
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on Zosha at the same time.
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Oh okay.
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So, according to that same interview on it with CNN quote,
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initially she was buried in the coffin in a natural position,
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with the head towards the west and on a pillow
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and the padlock on her toe. So she was buried
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with the padlock.
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Because they were concerned. They were like, hmm, she looks
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weird and she's an enemy, so let's just do this.
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Maybe because of some misfortune or the death of somebody else,
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they decided to open the grave end quote. So there
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was some external event.
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Yeah, like maybe a like a disaster, some sort of
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sickness came through shortly after she died, and she was
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the catalyst, the scapegoat.
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During the process of opening her coffin and disturbing her remains,
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her spine became twisted, likely as they were attempting to
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place her face down, so instead they chose to secure
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the sickle over her throat to prevent her from rising
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from the dead. Zoshas is the only skeleton that was
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found with a sickle around her neck.
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Man, So either yeah, she was definitely suspected of being
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a vampire or somebody just really didn't like her.
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Zosha's final resting place was unmarked and no other headstones
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or churches were in the nearby vicinity.
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What were they doing in the air, Like, what were
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they looking for?
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Were they looking for her?
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Was there like a suspected thing or like.
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I'm going to kind of get into it, but they
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were excavating the area because this area in some areas
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that are very close by are known. I don't want
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to say hotbeds, because they're not really hotbeds, but known
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places of these types of burials.
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Okay, so.
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They were digging there because they've discovered other kind of random,
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unmarked graves.
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Got it.
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This was kind of like a weird othered people burial ground.
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Almost Yes, you got it. Okay, interesting.
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Yeah, Darius believes that she was likely taken out to
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the remote location and abandoned due to fears that she
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was a vampire.
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That makes sense.
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I mean, if I was starving and everything in my
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life was turning upside down and it all kind of
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happened when that person died, I'd be afraid of her too,
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I guess.
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Historian Dan Jones notes of Zoshaw's discovery quote, I have
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to admit when I first saw the pictures, I was
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incredibly excited. I have never seen anything like this before.
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Is this a crime scene? Is this evidence of the supernatural?
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Is this evidence of a unique craze? Or are we
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in fact stepping back into an entirely different world in
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which Europe was governed by totally different rules? End quote?
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Probably a mix of all of it. Yeah, honestly.
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In an interview that Darius gave with The Times, quote
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what we know for sure is that this place, this cemetery,
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was for people who were excluded from the community. There
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are no historical sources about this place, which is very strange.
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It means that it was a cemetery for people who
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were abandoned. It has been written out of history. It
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can be assumed that for some reason, those burying the
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woman were afraid that she would rise from the grave.
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The sickle was not laid flat, but placed on the
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neck in such a way that if the deceased had
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tried to get up, most likely the head would have
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been cut off or injured.
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That's so scary.
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Ways to protect against the return of the dead include
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cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face
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down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing
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them with a stone end quote.
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I don't know how you could it.