watoday.com.au/world/staked...-8sts.html

The skeleton of woman who was probably believed to have been a vampire when she died in the Middle Ages has reportedly been uncovered in Venice.

Archaeologists made the find on Lazzaretto Nuovo, one of the hundreds of islands that make up the lagoon city, the ANSA news agency reported.

A brick found lodged in the skeleton's mouth suggests the woman's body was "staked", University of Florence expert Matteo Borrini said.

The procedure, according to Medieval superstition, prevented "undead vampires" from sucking blood from the corpses of those buried near them, Borrini explained.

The woman's burial is also probably linked to the belief that witches and vampires were responsible for spreading bubonic plague, the so-called Black Death that killed millions of people in Europe in the Middle Ages.