This is the recreated face of a 16th-century woman believed to have been buried with a brick in her mouth to stop her from eating the dead.
Now, hundreds of years after she died, a forensic whizz has brought the female, found in a mass grave on the Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, back to life. Brazilian expert Cicero Moraes gave her facial features after she was discovered during an archaeological dig in 2006 and tested the theory that a brick could have been inserted in her mouth.
The dig of the grave from the 1576 plague outbreak was led by forensic anthropologist Matteo Borrini who said the woman was thought to be a vampire and “was exorcised by having a brick shoved into her mouth”
Thought to be a European woman who died aged around 61, she had a diet of vegetables and grains, indicating she was poor. Some experts believe a gravedigger put a rock between her teeth to stop her from chewing through her shroud and infecting others with the plague
