Scientists Rebuild Face of 400-year-old Polish 'Vampire'

A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
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Scientists Rebuild Face of 400-year-old Polish 'Vampire'

A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS
A three-dimensional reconstruction of Zosia's face, a woman buried as a vampire, is pictured, in this undated handout photo taken in Stockholm, Sweden. Oscar Nilsson - Project Pien/Handout via REUTERS

Buried with a padlock on her foot and an iron sickle across her neck, "Zosia" was never supposed to be able 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 Zosia's 400-year-old face, revealing the human story buried by supernatural beliefs, Reuters reported.
"It's really ironic, in a way," said Swedish archaeologist Oscar Nilsson. "These people burying her, they did everything they could in order to prevent her from coming back from the dead... we have done everything we can in order to bring her back to life."
Zosia, as she was named by locals, was found in 2022 by a team of archaeologists from Torun's Nicolaus Copernicus University.
Aged 18-20 when she died, analysis of Zosia's skull suggests she suffered from a health condition which would have caused fainting and severe headaches, as well as possible mental health issues, Nilsson said.
The sickle, the padlock and certain types of wood found at the grave site were all believed at the time to hold magical properties protecting against vampires, according to the Nicolaus Copernicus team.
Zosia's was Grave No. 75 at the unmarked cemetery in Pien, outside the northern city of Bydgoszcz. Among the other bodies found at the site was a "vampire" child, buried face down and similarly padlocked at the foot.
Little is known of Zosia's life, but Nilsson and the Pien team say items she was buried with point to her being from a wealthy — possibly noble — family.
The 17th century Europe she lived in was ravaged by war, something Nilsson suggests created a climate of fear in which belief in supernatural monsters was commonplace.
Nilsson's recreation began with creating a 3D printed replica of the skull, before gradually building layers of plasticine clay "muscle by muscle" to form a life-like face.
He uses bone structure combined with information on gender, age, ethnicity and approximate weight to estimate the depth of facial features.
"It's emotional to watch a face coming back from the dead, especially when you know the story about this young girl," Nilsson says.
Nilsson said he wanted to bring Zosia back "as a human, and not as this monster that she is buried as".



Customers at this Starbucks Can Sip Coffee and Observe a Quiet North Korean Village

Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
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Customers at this Starbucks Can Sip Coffee and Observe a Quiet North Korean Village

Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Visitors at a newly opened Starbucks store as North Korea’s Kaephung county is seen in the background at the observatory of the Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Coffee drinkers can sip their beverages and view a quiet North Korean mountain village from a new Starbucks at a South Korean border observatory.
Customers have to pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark, which is less than a mile from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung county, The Associated Press said.
The tables and windows face North Korea at the Starbucks, where about 40 people, a few of them foreigners, came to the opening Friday.
The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination and said the shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”
The observatory is the key facility at Aegibong park, which was built on a hill that was a fierce battle site during the 1950-53 Korean War. The park also has gardens, exhibition and conference halls and a war memorial dedicated to fallen marines.
Gimpo and other South Korean border cities like Paju have been trying to develop their border sites as tourist assets, even as tensions grow between the war-divided Koreas.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been trying to raise pressure on South Korea and threatening to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked. North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying trash-laden balloons into the South and disrupting GPS signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.
Kaephung county is believed to be one of the possible sites from where North Korea has launched thousands of balloons over several months.
South Korea’s military said Friday that the North flew dozens more balloons overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital Seoul and nearby Gyeonggi province.