The oldest known "vampire" grave

A 4,000-year-old grave has been unearthed at an archaeological dig in Bohemia that looks like whoever buried him thought he was a vampire:

During their explorations, archaeolgists in charge of the dig found the grave of a man whose skeleton showed the unmistakable tell-tale signs that his community had believed him to be a vampire and carried out certain specific rituals designed to keep the corpse in its grave after death.

On opening the grave, which was set well apart from others nearby, the archaeologists found that the skeleton had been weighted down to prevent it returning to haunt the living.

The only people in Europe to carry out such rituals on suspected vampires were the ancient Irish. The Irish kingdom of Dalriada stretched from present-day Northern Ireland into western Scotland.

Radko Sedlacek, the curator of the East Bohemia, Museum said: "Fearing that he might return from the grave, the dead man was sent on his final journey weighed down with a huge stone on his chest and another one on his head. Only the bodies of people believed to be vampires were given such treatment."

So the vampire myths and the necessary measures to deal with them were already firmly established four thousand years ago.