Archaeologists have discovered a skeleton of a child believed to be a "vampire" in an Italian cemetery for children in Rome dating back 1600 years.
Archaeologists believe that the 10-year-old child of vampires having a stone in his mouth, a burial ritual for vampires to prevent them from returning to the surface after death.
It is believed that this weather prevailed in the fifth century AD to prevent the dead from rising again and return to earth and infect others.
However, tests on the skeleton, which did not specify whether male or female, indicate that the child was infected with malaria when he died.
"I've never seen anything as strange and exciting as before," said the professor of archeology at Arizona State University.
Archaeologists, who conducted the excavations on the site, believe that the stone was forcibly inserted into the dead man's mouth, and that it was deliberately placed in his mouth.
This child was specifically buried at a distance deeper than the distance where the rest of the children were buried.
Elsewhere in the cemetery, the remains of a stone-covered child were found, and the remains of four other children were found.
Tests on the burial site indicate evidence of a form of magic that prevailed at the time, where the bones of frogs, claws, swords and bronze pots were found in the tombs.
