Burial Files Pt. 1: The Brick. The Bite. The Venice Plague Pit.
aka: one woman, one grave, one very aggressive mouth situation
✨ hi. welcome to the blog.
today we’re talking about the time a bunch of 1500s Venetians decided the plague was being spread by a corpse chewing its burial shroud, so naturally they dug it up and shoved a BRICK in its mouth
In 2006, archaeologists were poking around a plague pit on Lazzaretto Nuovo (a spooky lil quarantine island outside Venice)
and they found her.
mid-60s
no name
no jewelry (nah how dare they 😒)
no coffin
just a skeleton
AND A WHOLE ASS BRICK IN HER MOUTH
not metaphorically. not symbolically. a literal, full-sized brick. inserted with intent.
Back then, people believed in “shroud-eaters”—corpses that chewed through their own burial cloths and spread plague like some kind of death ASMR.
so the logic went:-
the plague’s back again?
must be Sandra from two graves down chewing the vibes off the linens again
better dig her up and shut her corpse mouth
BRICK IT, BOYS.
(these dumbasses 🙄)
The archaeologist Matteo Borrini called it the first known “vampire burial” in Venice. He even did a whole forensic reconstruction with fake skulls and foam bricks (yes, that’s a job you can have). And Nat Geo was like “yeah this was definitely fear-based corpse censorship” (not their exact words but ykwim).
She was buried twice. Once as a plague victim. Once as a maybe-vampire.
Which is so deeply unfair of the 1500s.
do we know her?
nope. not her name, not her story.
just that she lived through at least one plague, probably 1576, when 50,000+ Venetians died (including Titian, because the plague had no taste apparently).
they found her with bones brittle from age, signs of stress and illness, and a literal mouth full (i'm sorry) of accusation.
she didn’t even get a shroud anymore. just a BRICK and the blame.
what do we do with that?
we remember her.
we talk about her.
we give her a post. (BOOM one down 💪💪💪)
because she got bricked instead of buried properly, and that feels like the least we can do.
this is the first entry in my mini series- ✨ Burial Files✨:
where I talk about people who got buried in weird, cursed, dramatic, or just extremely suspicious ways
there will be more.
oh boy, there will be more.
drop a follow if you also:
love weird corpses
feel too much about forgotten people
have no chill when it comes to grave drama and believe bricks should only go in buildings, not mouths