How scientists brought a 400-year-old 'vampire' to life
Buried with a padlock on her foot and an iron sickle across her neck, ‘Zosia’ was never supposed to come back from the dead. Entombed in an unmarked cemetery in Pien, northern Poland, the young woman was one of dozens feared by her neighbors to have been a ‘vampire.’ Now, using DNA, 3D printing and modelling clay, a team of scientists has reconstructed the 400-year-old face, revealing a human story wrapped in supernatural beliefs. Zosia, as she was named by locals, was found in 2022 by a team of archaeologists from Torun’s Nicolaus Copernicus University. Aged just 18-20 when she died, analysis of Zosia’s skull suggests she suffered from a health condition which would have caused her to faint and experience severe headaches, Nilsson says, as well as possible mental health issues. Items she was buried with point to her being from a wealthy—possibly noble—family.
REUTERS / OSCAR NILSSON - PROJECT PIEN / NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY, TORUN
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Buried with a padlock on her foot and an iron sickle across her neck, ‘Zosia’ was never supposed to come back from the dead. Entombed in an unmarked cemetery in Pien, northern Poland, the young woman was one of dozens feared by her neighbors to have been a ‘vampire.’ Now, using DNA, 3D printing and modelling clay, a team of scientists has reconstructed the 400-year-old face, revealing a human story wrapped in supernatural beliefs. Zosia, as she was named by locals, was found in 2022 by a team of archaeologists from Torun’s Nicolaus Copernicus University. Aged just 18-20 when she died, analysis of Zosia’s skull suggests she suffered from a health condition which would have caused her to faint and experience severe headaches, Nilsson says, as well as possible mental health issues. Items she was buried with point to her being from a wealthy—possibly noble—family.
REUTERS / OSCAR NILSSON - PROJECT PIEN / NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY, TORUN
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NewsTranscript
00:30I mean, this is a science-based project and I think it's really ironic in a way that
00:54these people barring her, they made everything they could in order to prevent her from coming
00:59back from the dead. And I and the team of Pien, we have made everything we can in order
01:07to make her come back to life. Probably she was not that well looked upon in a time, probably
01:16when they said it was a vampire, I got of course both a bit scared in a way and also
01:23I got the idea or the mental set that I would try to make her as a human and not as this
01:36monster that she's buried as.
01:53I think we'll hold it. Maybe here. I'll just pull it over a bit.
02:15How do you weigh it?
02:17If you could hold it by the back.
02:19By the back.
02:21Yes.
02:31She was found in a grave in 2022 with a sickle placed over her throat and at her left big toe
02:44there was a padlock placed and this is interpreted as signs of the people that buried
02:54her thought she was a vampire.
02:56Fantastic condition. This is 17th century.
03:01She was not more than like 18, 19, maybe 20 years old but she had one condition that caused her to
03:09faint and causing a severe headache and perhaps also mental issues.
03:39So in that aspect it's a bit of an ironic project but it also, although it is science, it is catching.
03:54I mean it's emotional to watch a face coming back from the dead so to speak and especially when you
04:01know the story about this young girl.
04:05Anyway, it's a very nice quality of the preservation of the skull.
04:10She catches your heart. It is a strong story and I'm very pleased with presenting most likely her true face.
04:35She was found in a grave in 2022 with a sickle placed over her throat and at her left big toe there was a padlock
04:45placed and perhaps also mental issues.
04:47She was found in a grave in 2022 with a sickle placed over her throat and at her left big toe there was a
04:54padlock placed and perhaps also mental issues.
04:58It's a bit more complicated than otherwise because we do a scan of the skull and then we let a 3D printer
05:08print an exact copy of the skull on which I can work.
05:18I'm not only relying on the tissue depth markers which are placed onto the skull telling me about the
05:25depth on different landmarks in the face, I also reconstruct muscle by muscle to get it as accurate as I can.
05:34A rather sick girl but she's also from a wealthy family.
05:38I want the viewer to almost get a sense of that it's a living actual person that I have reconstructed
05:48that we get a sort of emotional contact with this.
05:55For more information visit www.ISGlobal.org