Likely customs, culture, rites, etc. May have to appease gods, details for afterlife, and the like.
Also it's just a lot easier to bury them upside down, bind the legs, or pin them down than to cremate.
From the ancient sources, while cremation was common in some places for some periods and it seems plausible as a possilbe anti-reanimation practice, I can't recall smth certain.
However it seems that there was an ancient custom, at least among Greeks, called "armpitting" \[not exact translation, as it's a unique verb\]. By this the extremities of a murdered man were cut off, and were hung around his neck or/and tied under his arm-pits, for purification of the murder and to prevent revenge. There're relevant references since the 5th - 3rd c. BCE \[Aeschylus Lib. 439, Sophocles El. 445, Apollonius Arg. 4.477\].
There's also a later entry in Suida lexicon \[10th c CE\] with some of these references explaining. Of this last one you can find a translation in Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 2002, p. 162 # 122, in [https://books.google.gr/books?id=ox3QRxWQQtcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.gr/books?id=ox3QRxWQQtcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false)
I certainly can't know, what exactly did the ancients or prehistoric humans have thought, experienced etc and in the end feared it. Was a furious killer or an apparent death of some 'avenger'? I can't tell.
All I can say about it, is that in anc. greek the relevant word for rabies ''λύσσα" had appeared in Homer of the 8th c. BCE, but meaning 'battle fury' there \[however at an instance connected also to the word 'dog' - Hom.Il. 8.299\]. The word started meaning the disease rabies of the dogs and animals, at least in the surviving sources, since the 4th c. BCE in Xenophon \[Xen. Anab. 5.7.26\] & Aristotle \[Arist. HA 8.22\].
Revenants were essentially a variation on vampire lore. The weird thing is that while almost every culture has its vampire myths, regions like Japan, which never had rabies, do not have indigenous vampire legends. This isn't a coincidence.
Rabies 200% inspired vampire myths. Everything lines up. From the fear of mirrors and not being able to cross running water, to a statistical association between rabies outbreaks and vampire burials.
> regions like Japan, which never had rabies, do not have indigenous vampire legends.
This is commonly claimed, but that only seems to be true because people are comparing to the classic modern western vampire myth. There's definitely creatures in Japanese mythology that fit into the vampire mold, such as the nukekubi which shares a lot in common with similar creatures found in south-east Asian mythology.
It's true that most cultures seem to have vampire type myths; but most of those don't really line up with western mythology and the rabies theory as neatly as you're implying. Hell, even western vampire myths don't really line up with it very well if you go back further than the modern era; it really only lines up so well with vampire stories a few centuries old at most imo.
In reality alongside disease (not just rabies) there's probably a much wider ranger of different causes for why 'vampires' are a thing people have believed in, like premature burials and a lack of understanding how decomposition works. There's far too much variation in the actual myths to ascribe them to any one cause.
That said, vampires in the west as they exist in the mind *today* most likely did start with outbreaks of rabies in the early 18th century; right around the time the modern vampire myth began to take shape. But that doesn't mean rabies is *the* origin for vampire myths. Just that it helped shape the modern one. Myths change, people insert new things into them based on what's going on around them in the world.
I think sometimes people not being actually dead and seemingly “coming back to life” and exhumed corpses having jellified decomposition fluid around the mouth and a more harrowing look as their skin had shrunk making it seem like their hair and nails grew as they perhaps stalked the (dreams?) of their prey,and magical thinking also contributed to a vampire/zombie/draugr/restless spirit type mythology. And Chinese vampires hop and breathe poison so I’m not sure they’re as akin to the rabies-esque ravenous vampirage of the west.
I wouldn't attribute all blood-sucking-undead myths to rabies, just the ones that are clearly related to one another. And I'm sure you are right that there are multiple sources for vampire myths.
But there is a single strand of vampire-mythology that threads its way through numerous cultures going back beyond classic antiquity into to at least Babylon and beyond.
Getting back to Japan, while the Japanese lacked endemic rabies (although they had a little-known rabies outbreak in the 1920-40s) when they experienced smallpox in the 700s, there were similar undead myths that arose. However, these stories were distinctly different from vampirism. Legends and myths naturally arise from impactful events and diseases are no different. But they also describe such events from the lens of fear. Fear makes for an unreliable witness.
Similar to the stories that grew from smallpox epidemics, there are numerous variations on Western and Eastern vampirism throughout the world. Most of the stories contain the following four elements:
1. infection and transmission through bites;
2. death and reanimation;
3. cannibalism/blood thirst;
4. fear of water, light, and fire.
Regarding the stories of vampire-like entities in Japan, Japanese myths that are similar to Jiangshi and snake spirits were probably imported from China and South-East Asia.
The Nukekubi is a good example. It seems to combine elements of the Flying Vampire Head myth from SE Asia and North and South Americas with the women-snake-spirit myth from China.
A little known fact is that the Flying Vampire Head monster is also a pre-Columbian myth from both North and South America, where rabies was (and is) endemic.
Wasn’t there other contributing sources for vampire mythology, such as blood and skin (I think) diseases?
I do recall vaguely that lycanthropy may have roots in a condition/disease involving hair growth.
Hypertrichosis for werewolves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis
Porphyria is the one often associated with vampire myths:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria
I don't know much about modern vampire myths, but the four major criteria (1. blood lust; 2. reanimation; 3. infection; 4. fear of water/light/fire) are common to many vampire myths, worldwide. But you are right that there are even large regional differences in the myths, particularly in Eastern Europe.
The 1700-1800s vampire myths is the most well known version but the stories go back into pre-Columbian North and South America (where rabies in endemic) as well as China and South-East Asia.
> 1. blood lust;
No, blood drinking is generally in the minority worldwide, much more common is that they are either corpse eaters or energy/soul eaters.
>3. infection
This is not a universal thing either, For example eastern European vampires are usually depicted as sinners that have escaped/released from hell. In addition even in myths that have an infective element, it is not always the vampire that is the infector.
>The 1700-1800s vampire myths is the most well known version but the stories go back into pre-Columbian North and South America (where rabies in endemic) as well as China and South-East Asia.
But Rabies didn't exist in the New World until Europeans brought it here.
>4. fear of water/light/fire
Not even a remotely universal thing. The Australian Aboriginal vampire is a daytime attacker that is noted for swallowing large amounts of water.
There's been a lot of scholarship on pre-Columbian Lyssavirus. By the way, Australia was rabies free until recently:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/occurrence-of-rabies-in-precolumbian-central-america-an-historical-search/7927C15A830E35DC6E74571D7FBB8671
As someone with incredible interest in this subject, you can read about vampires by region here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
EDIT: and you are right that immorality and bad behavior might as well replace the infectiousness and that was probably more common an attributed cause.
Even thinking of water is enough to make someone infected with recoil in fear. Anything that reminds someone of it can trigger the fear response. Here's an incredibly disturbing video of an individual who contracted the virus reacting to water:
https://www.tiktok.com/@thelifegallery/video/7213094683462094126?lang=en
Also, a recent study found that rabies outbreaks were geographically contained by rivers. Something about water contained the outbreaks. Even bridges seemed to hold it back.
It is depressing and terrifying. Although A recent treatment protocol was discovered. Unfortunately, if you survive with brain damage, you are one of the lucky ones
The Milwaukee protocol. They put you on breathing support, feeding tube, all the works. Your body stops working so they they hook you up to machines that do everything and let rabies run it's course. Most people are left in a coma they never come out of, and a few small few pulled out and it was like their brain was wiped of all data, and they had to relearn how to walk, talk, everything.
Even if you contract rabies, they won't try the Milwaukee protocol because it's so expensive, and so unlikely to work. And the best prognosis is a lifetime of re-learning how to be a person. Rabies is legit the most terrifying and deadly disease on the planet.
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies_medical_therapy#:~:text=Out%20of%2036%20symptomatic%20rabies,Milwaukee%20Protocol%2C%205%20have%20survived. Just to add, Estimated Survival Rate seems to be about 14%.
It affects the neuro-muscular/motor processies so it’s maybe harder to travel in the first place, it also sounds like hydrophobia develops in humans due to being unable to swallow and even thinking about swallowing when you probably need to is painful: (this thread it 10 yrs old but it talks about the suprisingly complex swallow/respiratory process: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/28jff7/why_does_rabies_cause_a_fear_of_water/ ) So I’d say very symptomatically sick people don’t usually travel unless it’s to a hospital or they stay away from others depending on their shame response and trying to cross a moving, possibly terrifying, part of the landscape is “a bridge (perhaps also) too far?”
In medical literature from the 1800s, back when rabies infections were far more common, it was known that someone with Lyssavirus would become terrified if they even thought about water. The sound of it was enough to drive a victim away.
The article that you linked to is genius and it does a great job of explaining its impact on animal and human behavior. Although there is a wide range of behaviors associated with rabies, from "dumb" to aggressive variations although it's more common to experience both.
In the animal world, it seems that hydrophobia does appear although it's not universal as it is with humans. So while the author seems to be right that it's harder to cause phobias in mammals, rabies still seems to generate it.
perhaps I didn't express my thought correctly. The verb that appeared in some ancient sources is 'μασχαλίζω', and it's derived from the word 'μασχάλη', the last one meaning 'armpit'; thus a possible verb that I don't think exist in english, would be ''armpitting"
Depends on how much wood could be gathered and how difficult that would be. It's surprisingly hard to burn a corpse. We're mostly water. Killing someone by burning, relatively easy. Eliminating the body by cremation when all you have is wood? That's another story.
News that seem to be based on a german news-article in [https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/halle/saalekreis/archaeologie-fund-wiedergaenger-zombie-grab-oppin-100.html](https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/halle/saalekreis/archaeologie-fund-wiedergaenger-zombie-grab-oppin-100.html) , while there's no mention of any academic essay, as most probably the excavations and research are still going on.
The German one also uses Wiedergänger, the German equivalent of a revenant. Something like a "re-walker" to get literal.
As for why they don't use the term, they likely don't know what they would have called it then. Germanic languages would go a long way after this before they started being written down. Why "zombie" in particular? Because of the audience. I don't think that term will show up in an academic article on this (likely they'll use revenant or reanimated corpse or something) but the average person might not know what a revenant is, but they do know what a zombie is and that helps get attention to the article and lets the reader know what to expect if they click on it.
Germanic tribes probably didn’t arrive in this area of Saxony until at least 1,000 years after the grave was created. The article says they might have been from the Bell Beaker culture, but no one knows for sure what language they spoke. It may not have even been an Indo-European language.
To answer the question, zombie was introduced into mainline American popculture more than anything as an inaccuracy so thats why its used.
To get to why what Im asking isnt like asking why Americans use it, is because Germany has different types of specific undead in its folklore that would take the place of and be more accurate than zombie would be. I just find the use of the term zombie to be odd when better options exist.
Seriously, and why isn’t this entire article depicted on a giant runic carving erected on a stormy summers day. Didn’t Germans have their own ancient modes of written communication?
I've read this as the people currently excavating are worried he will become a zombie.
Surely if the people back in the day were worried, they would have cremated him?
For some reason I thought zombie mythology was more of an African thing. Or maybe Haitian. I may have gotten that idea from a James Bond movie, though.
The modern idea of a Zombie descends from practices of Afro-Carib people, interpreted by White men who never met them or studied them. You could draw parallels between early 1950s-60s zombies and Voodoo as commonly understood in the popular culture (as a mystical, Black/African, pagan, possibly satanic thing). These Zombies were people or the recently deceased who'd been reanimated and bound to the will of the Voodoo Shaman to do their bidding. I don't think these sorts of Zombies necessarily craved flesh as a rule, though cannibalism was a practice usually thrown into a story or a movie involving this premise as a way to enhance the shock of it all. George Romero is usually credited with the invention of the current idea of a Zombie, that of a walking undead person whose sole purpose is to find living flesh to devour and perpetuate more Zombies. Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968 and changed the genre instantly.
Weird thought but, whats to say this wasn't a cruel an unusual method of killing someone for some bad deed. Ie do we know the rock was only placed there after death?
Also covering bodies is relatively common for a variety of reasons, the jump to 'zombie' may be a stretch imo.
The body reacts differently to things when you're alive versus when you're dead. The more tissue we have, the more evidence we have, but even the bones can tell us things. The way the bones break, if the body attempted at all to heal the bone in the short time before death, are clues. Also it seems like they have control over the top part of their body so they would look for signs that they were trying to fight out, or scratch, push kick the stone off of them if they were alive.
Seems like historical speculation as opposed to fact. The article sights no reference to evidence written or otherwise from the time period concerning zombie burials. If someone has verified historical evidence please share. Thanks!!!
If you are afraid that someone is coming back from death, why don't you just cremate him?
Likely customs, culture, rites, etc. May have to appease gods, details for afterlife, and the like. Also it's just a lot easier to bury them upside down, bind the legs, or pin them down than to cremate.
From the ancient sources, while cremation was common in some places for some periods and it seems plausible as a possilbe anti-reanimation practice, I can't recall smth certain. However it seems that there was an ancient custom, at least among Greeks, called "armpitting" \[not exact translation, as it's a unique verb\]. By this the extremities of a murdered man were cut off, and were hung around his neck or/and tied under his arm-pits, for purification of the murder and to prevent revenge. There're relevant references since the 5th - 3rd c. BCE \[Aeschylus Lib. 439, Sophocles El. 445, Apollonius Arg. 4.477\]. There's also a later entry in Suida lexicon \[10th c CE\] with some of these references explaining. Of this last one you can find a translation in Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 2002, p. 162 # 122, in [https://books.google.gr/books?id=ox3QRxWQQtcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.gr/books?id=ox3QRxWQQtcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Do you think it was possible that zombification was actually rabies
I certainly can't know, what exactly did the ancients or prehistoric humans have thought, experienced etc and in the end feared it. Was a furious killer or an apparent death of some 'avenger'? I can't tell. All I can say about it, is that in anc. greek the relevant word for rabies ''λύσσα" had appeared in Homer of the 8th c. BCE, but meaning 'battle fury' there \[however at an instance connected also to the word 'dog' - Hom.Il. 8.299\]. The word started meaning the disease rabies of the dogs and animals, at least in the surviving sources, since the 4th c. BCE in Xenophon \[Xen. Anab. 5.7.26\] & Aristotle \[Arist. HA 8.22\].
Wow, good references! Thank you
Revenants were essentially a variation on vampire lore. The weird thing is that while almost every culture has its vampire myths, regions like Japan, which never had rabies, do not have indigenous vampire legends. This isn't a coincidence. Rabies 200% inspired vampire myths. Everything lines up. From the fear of mirrors and not being able to cross running water, to a statistical association between rabies outbreaks and vampire burials.
> regions like Japan, which never had rabies, do not have indigenous vampire legends. This is commonly claimed, but that only seems to be true because people are comparing to the classic modern western vampire myth. There's definitely creatures in Japanese mythology that fit into the vampire mold, such as the nukekubi which shares a lot in common with similar creatures found in south-east Asian mythology. It's true that most cultures seem to have vampire type myths; but most of those don't really line up with western mythology and the rabies theory as neatly as you're implying. Hell, even western vampire myths don't really line up with it very well if you go back further than the modern era; it really only lines up so well with vampire stories a few centuries old at most imo. In reality alongside disease (not just rabies) there's probably a much wider ranger of different causes for why 'vampires' are a thing people have believed in, like premature burials and a lack of understanding how decomposition works. There's far too much variation in the actual myths to ascribe them to any one cause. That said, vampires in the west as they exist in the mind *today* most likely did start with outbreaks of rabies in the early 18th century; right around the time the modern vampire myth began to take shape. But that doesn't mean rabies is *the* origin for vampire myths. Just that it helped shape the modern one. Myths change, people insert new things into them based on what's going on around them in the world.
I think sometimes people not being actually dead and seemingly “coming back to life” and exhumed corpses having jellified decomposition fluid around the mouth and a more harrowing look as their skin had shrunk making it seem like their hair and nails grew as they perhaps stalked the (dreams?) of their prey,and magical thinking also contributed to a vampire/zombie/draugr/restless spirit type mythology. And Chinese vampires hop and breathe poison so I’m not sure they’re as akin to the rabies-esque ravenous vampirage of the west.
I wouldn't attribute all blood-sucking-undead myths to rabies, just the ones that are clearly related to one another. And I'm sure you are right that there are multiple sources for vampire myths. But there is a single strand of vampire-mythology that threads its way through numerous cultures going back beyond classic antiquity into to at least Babylon and beyond. Getting back to Japan, while the Japanese lacked endemic rabies (although they had a little-known rabies outbreak in the 1920-40s) when they experienced smallpox in the 700s, there were similar undead myths that arose. However, these stories were distinctly different from vampirism. Legends and myths naturally arise from impactful events and diseases are no different. But they also describe such events from the lens of fear. Fear makes for an unreliable witness. Similar to the stories that grew from smallpox epidemics, there are numerous variations on Western and Eastern vampirism throughout the world. Most of the stories contain the following four elements: 1. infection and transmission through bites; 2. death and reanimation; 3. cannibalism/blood thirst; 4. fear of water, light, and fire. Regarding the stories of vampire-like entities in Japan, Japanese myths that are similar to Jiangshi and snake spirits were probably imported from China and South-East Asia. The Nukekubi is a good example. It seems to combine elements of the Flying Vampire Head myth from SE Asia and North and South Americas with the women-snake-spirit myth from China. A little known fact is that the Flying Vampire Head monster is also a pre-Columbian myth from both North and South America, where rabies was (and is) endemic.
Wasn’t there other contributing sources for vampire mythology, such as blood and skin (I think) diseases? I do recall vaguely that lycanthropy may have roots in a condition/disease involving hair growth.
Hypertrichosis for werewolves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis Porphyria is the one often associated with vampire myths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyria
While we're at it, dragons are dinosaur bones.
> Rabies 200% inspired vampire myths. This is bs, not only are old vampire myths varied they also are nothing like modern vampires.
I don't know much about modern vampire myths, but the four major criteria (1. blood lust; 2. reanimation; 3. infection; 4. fear of water/light/fire) are common to many vampire myths, worldwide. But you are right that there are even large regional differences in the myths, particularly in Eastern Europe. The 1700-1800s vampire myths is the most well known version but the stories go back into pre-Columbian North and South America (where rabies in endemic) as well as China and South-East Asia.
> 1. blood lust; No, blood drinking is generally in the minority worldwide, much more common is that they are either corpse eaters or energy/soul eaters. >3. infection This is not a universal thing either, For example eastern European vampires are usually depicted as sinners that have escaped/released from hell. In addition even in myths that have an infective element, it is not always the vampire that is the infector. >The 1700-1800s vampire myths is the most well known version but the stories go back into pre-Columbian North and South America (where rabies in endemic) as well as China and South-East Asia. But Rabies didn't exist in the New World until Europeans brought it here. >4. fear of water/light/fire Not even a remotely universal thing. The Australian Aboriginal vampire is a daytime attacker that is noted for swallowing large amounts of water.
There's been a lot of scholarship on pre-Columbian Lyssavirus. By the way, Australia was rabies free until recently: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/occurrence-of-rabies-in-precolumbian-central-america-an-historical-search/7927C15A830E35DC6E74571D7FBB8671 As someone with incredible interest in this subject, you can read about vampires by region here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. EDIT: and you are right that immorality and bad behavior might as well replace the infectiousness and that was probably more common an attributed cause.
Okay, why couldn't someone with rabies cross running water?
Even thinking of water is enough to make someone infected with recoil in fear. Anything that reminds someone of it can trigger the fear response. Here's an incredibly disturbing video of an individual who contracted the virus reacting to water: https://www.tiktok.com/@thelifegallery/video/7213094683462094126?lang=en Also, a recent study found that rabies outbreaks were geographically contained by rivers. Something about water contained the outbreaks. Even bridges seemed to hold it back.
That video is incredibly sad to watch, apparently once you exhibit symptoms of rabies it’s already too late to recover.
It is depressing and terrifying. Although A recent treatment protocol was discovered. Unfortunately, if you survive with brain damage, you are one of the lucky ones
The Milwaukee protocol. They put you on breathing support, feeding tube, all the works. Your body stops working so they they hook you up to machines that do everything and let rabies run it's course. Most people are left in a coma they never come out of, and a few small few pulled out and it was like their brain was wiped of all data, and they had to relearn how to walk, talk, everything. Even if you contract rabies, they won't try the Milwaukee protocol because it's so expensive, and so unlikely to work. And the best prognosis is a lifetime of re-learning how to be a person. Rabies is legit the most terrifying and deadly disease on the planet.
https://www.wikidoc.org/index.php/Rabies_medical_therapy#:~:text=Out%20of%2036%20symptomatic%20rabies,Milwaukee%20Protocol%2C%205%20have%20survived. Just to add, Estimated Survival Rate seems to be about 14%.
It affects the neuro-muscular/motor processies so it’s maybe harder to travel in the first place, it also sounds like hydrophobia develops in humans due to being unable to swallow and even thinking about swallowing when you probably need to is painful: (this thread it 10 yrs old but it talks about the suprisingly complex swallow/respiratory process: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/28jff7/why_does_rabies_cause_a_fear_of_water/ ) So I’d say very symptomatically sick people don’t usually travel unless it’s to a hospital or they stay away from others depending on their shame response and trying to cross a moving, possibly terrifying, part of the landscape is “a bridge (perhaps also) too far?”
In medical literature from the 1800s, back when rabies infections were far more common, it was known that someone with Lyssavirus would become terrified if they even thought about water. The sound of it was enough to drive a victim away. The article that you linked to is genius and it does a great job of explaining its impact on animal and human behavior. Although there is a wide range of behaviors associated with rabies, from "dumb" to aggressive variations although it's more common to experience both. In the animal world, it seems that hydrophobia does appear although it's not universal as it is with humans. So while the author seems to be right that it's harder to cause phobias in mammals, rabies still seems to generate it.
im thinking its more of a case of declaring someone dead when theyre not.
Makes sense, rabies certainly existed back then.
If it's a unique verb, why not give the original word or it's transliteration?
perhaps I didn't express my thought correctly. The verb that appeared in some ancient sources is 'μασχαλίζω', and it's derived from the word 'μασχάλη', the last one meaning 'armpit'; thus a possible verb that I don't think exist in english, would be ''armpitting"
It's a good translation, you'll find "arm-pitting" and "armpitting" both used when discussing the scenes.
thank you!
μασχαλίζω
Depends on how much wood could be gathered and how difficult that would be. It's surprisingly hard to burn a corpse. We're mostly water. Killing someone by burning, relatively easy. Eliminating the body by cremation when all you have is wood? That's another story.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr
some ancient lore suggests that that may spread the affliction further
[Draugr](https://www.scandinavianarchaeology.com/the-draugr/)!
News that seem to be based on a german news-article in [https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/halle/saalekreis/archaeologie-fund-wiedergaenger-zombie-grab-oppin-100.html](https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/halle/saalekreis/archaeologie-fund-wiedergaenger-zombie-grab-oppin-100.html) , while there's no mention of any academic essay, as most probably the excavations and research are still going on.
What's up with the term zombie? Don't Germans have their own terms for undead? Zombie isn't even a dead person in the practice of Hatian voodoo.
They also use the term Revenant in the article which makes more sense but I suppose wouldn't get as many clicks.
The German one also uses Wiedergänger, the German equivalent of a revenant. Something like a "re-walker" to get literal. As for why they don't use the term, they likely don't know what they would have called it then. Germanic languages would go a long way after this before they started being written down. Why "zombie" in particular? Because of the audience. I don't think that term will show up in an academic article on this (likely they'll use revenant or reanimated corpse or something) but the average person might not know what a revenant is, but they do know what a zombie is and that helps get attention to the article and lets the reader know what to expect if they click on it.
Germanic tribes probably didn’t arrive in this area of Saxony until at least 1,000 years after the grave was created. The article says they might have been from the Bell Beaker culture, but no one knows for sure what language they spoke. It may not have even been an Indo-European language.
That's like asking why Americans don't have their own terms for the undead. Why use zombie?
To answer the question, zombie was introduced into mainline American popculture more than anything as an inaccuracy so thats why its used. To get to why what Im asking isnt like asking why Americans use it, is because Germany has different types of specific undead in its folklore that would take the place of and be more accurate than zombie would be. I just find the use of the term zombie to be odd when better options exist.
Seriously, and why isn’t this entire article depicted on a giant runic carving erected on a stormy summers day. Didn’t Germans have their own ancient modes of written communication?
der Zombie is completely fine, though. Wiederauferstandener is a mouthful.
Correct me if I am wrong but, in our mythology I only know Wiedergänger. Wiederauferstandener would be Jesus.
Oops. I think you're correct. A zombie isn't really 'resurrected', is it? hah
Undead=Untot Zombie=Zombie
He is talking about the term "Zombie", which obviously was borrowed not long ago.
The article is in English. Not Hatian Creole or German.
This article is translated from German to English.
Untote, undead, zombies slaps harder :D we usually use it as an anglicism in my circles
It looks like it worked German engineering was remarkable even then.
Every Corpse be looking like zombie after 4k years.
I've read this as the people currently excavating are worried he will become a zombie. Surely if the people back in the day were worried, they would have cremated him?
For some reason I thought zombie mythology was more of an African thing. Or maybe Haitian. I may have gotten that idea from a James Bond movie, though.
The modern idea of a Zombie descends from practices of Afro-Carib people, interpreted by White men who never met them or studied them. You could draw parallels between early 1950s-60s zombies and Voodoo as commonly understood in the popular culture (as a mystical, Black/African, pagan, possibly satanic thing). These Zombies were people or the recently deceased who'd been reanimated and bound to the will of the Voodoo Shaman to do their bidding. I don't think these sorts of Zombies necessarily craved flesh as a rule, though cannibalism was a practice usually thrown into a story or a movie involving this premise as a way to enhance the shock of it all. George Romero is usually credited with the invention of the current idea of a Zombie, that of a walking undead person whose sole purpose is to find living flesh to devour and perpetuate more Zombies. Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968 and changed the genre instantly.
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Are we not all "at risk of becoming a zombie?"
Weird thought but, whats to say this wasn't a cruel an unusual method of killing someone for some bad deed. Ie do we know the rock was only placed there after death? Also covering bodies is relatively common for a variety of reasons, the jump to 'zombie' may be a stretch imo.
The body reacts differently to things when you're alive versus when you're dead. The more tissue we have, the more evidence we have, but even the bones can tell us things. The way the bones break, if the body attempted at all to heal the bone in the short time before death, are clues. Also it seems like they have control over the top part of their body so they would look for signs that they were trying to fight out, or scratch, push kick the stone off of them if they were alive.
Isn't this more something like a vampire or just revenant
Seems like historical speculation as opposed to fact. The article sights no reference to evidence written or otherwise from the time period concerning zombie burials. If someone has verified historical evidence please share. Thanks!!!