http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100226-vampires-venice-plague-skull-witches/

"Vampire of Venice" Unmasked: Plague Victim & Witch?



The skull of the "Vampire of Venice," found in a mass plague grave with a brick stuck in its jaw.

Photograph courtesy National Geographic Television

Christine Dell'Amore

National Geographic News

Published February 26, 2010

ON TV Vampire Forensics airs Saturday, February 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel. Preview Vampire Forensics >>

A female "vampire" unearthed in a mass grave near Venice, Italy, may have been accused of wearing another evil hat: a witch's.

The 16th-century woman was discovered among medieval plague victims in 2006. Her jaw had been forced open by a brick—an exorcism technique used on suspected vampires in Europe at the time.

The discovery marked the first time archaeological remains had been interpreted as those of an alleged vampire, project leader Matteo Borrini, a forensic archaeologist at the University of Florence in Italy, said when the skull was first revealed in March 2009.

New investigations have now shed light on who this "vampire" was, why people may have suspected her of dabbling in the dark arts, and even what she looked like.

"There is a piece of history to rewrite, to see this individual again after 500 years and also try to understand why the myth of vampire started," Borrini says in a new National Geographic Channel documentary. (The National Geographic Channel is part-owned by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)



The finished re-creation of the "Vampire of Venice." Image courtesy National Geographic Television




Vampire Myth Born of "Blood"

Borrini found the vampire skull while digging up mass graves on the Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo. (See pictures of plague victims' mass graves on another island near Venice.)

Belief in vampires was rampant in the Middle Ages, mostly because the process of decomposition was not well understood, Borrini says.

For instance, as the human stomach decays, it releases a dark "purge fluid." This bloodlike liquid can flow freely from a corpse's nose and mouth.

Since tombs and mass burials were often reopened during plagues to add new bodies, Italian gravediggers saw these decomposing remains and may have confused purge fluid with traces of vampire victims' blood.

In addition, the fluid sometimes moistened the burial shroud near the corpse's mouth so that the cloth sagged into the jaw. This could create tears in the cloth that made it seem as if the corpse had been chewing on its shroud.

Vampires were thought by some to be the causes of plagues, and the superstition took root that shroud-chewing was the "magical way" that vampires infected people, Borrini said.

Inserting objects—such as bricks and stones—into the mouths of alleged vampires was thought to halt the spread of disease.

(Related: "Vampire Moth Discovered—Evolution at Work.")

Surprisingly Elderly "Vampire"

To flesh out more details about the Venice vampire, Borrini assembled a team of scientists.

Paleonutritionists pulverized some of the woman's remains—discovered along with the skull—to look for certain elements in food that settle in the bones and endure after death.

The team found that the woman had eaten mostly vegetables and grains, suggesting a lower-class diet.

DNA analysis revealed that the woman was European, and a forensic odontologist ascertained the woman's age by examining the skull's long canine teeth with an advanced digital x-ray device.

The results showed that the woman was between 61 and 71 years old when she died. Borrini was "quite shocked" by this finding—most women didn't reach such advanced ages in the 16th century, he says in the documentary.

In medieval Europe, when fear of witches was widespread, many people believed the devil gave witches magical powers, including the ability to cheat death.

That means such a relatively old woman—suspected after death of being a vampire—may have been accused in life of being a witch, the researchers say.

Witches Were Child-Eaters?

But old age alone probably wouldn't spur an accusation of witchcraft, said Jason Coy, an expert in European witchcraft and superstition at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, who was not part of the new study.

Though average life expectancy in medieval Europe was low, around 40, that doesn't mean most people died at 40, he said via email. It means infant mortality was high, bringing down the average.

So the Venice vampire was old, but not "freakishly so," Coy said.

Rather, Europe's misogynistic society specifically linked old women with witchcraft, because people "assumed that old women—especially widows—were poor, lonely, weak, and unhappy, and thus could be lured by the devil's promises of wealth, sex, and power into forming a pact with him," Coy said.

At the height of the European witch-hunts, between A.D. 1550 and 1650, more than 100,000 people were tried as witches and 60,000 were executed—the vast majority of them old women.

Germany was the witch-hunt heartland, Coy said. Italy was relatively "mild" in its treatment of witches, although the country was also rife with superstitions and protective charms. (Related: "Halloween Shines Light on Witchcraft Today.")

In at least one historical reference, witches were said to eat children—possibly the origin of the Hansel and Gretel story, he added.

"So you could say that there is a tenuous link between flesh-eating zombies like your 'Venetian vampire' and witches: They're both feared for breaking the ultimate taboo—eating human flesh."

"Vampire of Venice" an Ordinary Woman

For the last step in forensic archaeologist Borrini's work, he called on 3-D imaging experts to produce a digital model of the skull.

He then put markers where muscle attachments would have existed to reconstruct and rebuild the Venice vampire's face. The result was the face of an "ordinary woman," which perhaps brings the accused some "historical justice" centuries after her death, he said.

"It's very strange to [leave] her now," he lamented, "because after this year it's sort of a friendship that's created between me and her."

The Secret Sun: Shekinah Rising: The Missile Defense Logo "Controversy"

http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2010/02/s ... logo.html#



By now you've seen the news stories over the
controversy over the Missile Defense Agency logo

. The issue seems to be over its alleged use of the crescent and star of Islam, which neocons see as some kind of symbolic surrender to Sharia law (or something to that effect). I'm not sure any of them really believe it- it's an election year and the more they can divert the voters from America's grim economic future, the better. But there are deeper issues at work here...



First- if you're talking symbolism, note that the crescent is inverted.

This is a significant detail in symbolism (upside down crosses, anyone?), not that it matters to the shills. Here are a couple typical arguments, if you can call them that:

"Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter’s authorities call Shariah."
"I'm having trouble seeing past the crescent and star in the new logo," one critic posted on WashingtonTimes.com. "Is this our signal to the muslim world that we're not going to shoot down their missiles?"

It's funny, these are the people last week who were complaining Obama was
killing too many terrorists

(to call American politics a clownshow is to insult honest, hardworking circus performers). I would think Muslims might see a US defense project
incorporating the (inverted) crescent and star as a profanation and an implied threat.

Is that why this ridiculous controversy was manufactured, to preempt more legitimate concerns?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Whenever a controversy erupts in the media over symbols, it's always an intentional diversion disguising a deeper meaning.
Let's take a closer look at the logo:



None of the media shills pointed out that the "star" is actually two crosses superimposed upon each other. Note those elongated bottom rays. Coincidence? Maybe, but maybe the whole thing is all a coincidence, then.



The effect resembles an X (or a Chi, if you prefer) laid over it, just as the Church of Scientology cross does. Why they use that symbol is another issue altogether. Some have speculated that Hubbard borrowed the logo from Crowley, who decorated the reverse of his Book of Thoth Tarot deck with the cross, which is derived from Constantine's chi-rho cross (why it is is another issue altogether).



But the cross, the globe and the crescent bring us to another Tarot deck- that of Crowley's arch-nemesis A.E. Waite. This is the High Priestess, who Waite describes thusly:

In a manner, she is also the Supernal Mother herself--that is to say, she is the bright reflection. It is in this sense of reflection that her truest and highest name in bolism is Shekinah--the co-habiting glory. - Waite, Pictorial Key to the Tarot



Sound familiar? Not a few researchers noticed that Shock and Awe- the big buzzword used during the early days of the Iraq invasion- sounds not a little bit like "Shekinah." Waite also writes that "according to Kabalism (sic), there is a Shekinah both above and below."

"Above and below." You mean like in the desert and the sky?

William Henry wrote on the "Shock and Awe" issue in 2003:

Most Christians and Jews are unaware that this Divine Fire is a feminine component of the deity in biblical times. This feminine Glory of God is called “shakina” (Shock-in-ah).

Shakina is the Indian Shakti, translated as “Cosmic Energy.” The term is used in the Talmud and Midrash in place of Word (Memra, Life Force Energy, Christ).

The image of the Shekinah reaches back to the goddesses of Sumeria and later to As-Tara in Canaan.

She was first exiled from humanity as a result of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which some scholars locate in various places in Iraq. She has shared the exile from the Garden (Iraq) with all of humanity. She is addressed as the ‘Mystical Eden’, the ‘holy apple garden’.



Some occultists and students of the Tarot interpret the High Priestess as an incarnation of Hathor as well. Hathor was associated with the sphere, the crescent (which corresponded with her horns) and was known as the "Lady of the Stars."

But like Shekinah, Hathor had a violent streak- she was also known as Sekhmet, a "bloodthirsty warrior" and "goddess of destruction":

(Hathor) was also a goddess of destruction in her role as the Eye of Ra - defender of the sun god. According to legend, people started to criticise Ra when he ruled as Pharaoh. Ra decided to send his "eye" against them (in the form of Sekhmet). She began to slaughter people by the hundred. When Ra relented and asked her to stop she refused as she was in a blood lust.

So, an entirely different picture is starting to emerge from these symbols than the one the medias- both the mainstream and the so-called "alternative"- would want to make you believe.

Think about it- which crescent and star do you think elements in the military would want to identify with- that of Islam or Sekhmet/Shekinah?



But the mystery deepens- some neocons have compared the logo to the Iranian Space Agency logo- take a long look at it...



http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YKPd1gUPBrw/S ... ogo018.jpg

...then look again at Hathor's headdress. How about that, eh?



Of course, we've been down this road before, with the election logos, right? Like the Iran S.A. logo, it leads me to believe that maybe the forces the media presents as adversaries are no such thing. But there's one fascinating connection here...





Between the MDA logo and the Stairway to Sirius. Note that the "earth" is a pure blue globe. Kind of like a
water

planet, no? Coincidence?

Maybe. The world's full of coincidences these days, isn't it?
click to delete

Chinese grandmother grows 'devil' horns | Mail Online

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 3:49 PM on 09th March 2010





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... orns.html#

<a href="http://img97.imageshack.us/my.php?image=article008a01623000005d.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6302/article008a01623000005d.jpg" alt="Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us" border="0"/></a>

An elderly Chinese woman has stunned her family and fellow villagers by growing from her forehead a horn than resembles a goat’s.

Grandmother Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou village, Henan province, began developing the mysterious protrusion last year.

Since then it has grown 2.4in in length and another now appears to emerging on the other side of the mother of seven’s forehead.

Bizarre: Zhang Ruifang began growing a horn last year. It is now 2.4in long

The condition has left her family baffled and worried.

Her youngest of six sons, Zhang Guozheng, 60, said when a patch of rough skin formed on her forehead last year ‘we didn't pay too much attention to it’.

‘But as time went on a horn grew out of her head and it is now 6cm long,' added Mr Zhang, whose eldest brother and sibling is 82 years old.

‘Now something is also growing on the right side of her forehead. It’s quite possible that it’s another horn.’

Although, it is unknown what the protrusion is on Mrs Zhang’s head, it resembles a cutaneous horn.

This is a funnel-shaped growth and although most are only a few millimetres in length, some can extend a number of inches from the skin.

Cutaneous horns are made up of compacted keratin, which is the same protein we have in our hair and nails, and forms horns, wool and feathers in animals.

They usually develop in fair-skinned elderly adults who have a history of significant sun exposure but it is extremely unusual to see it form protrusions of this size.

The growths are most common in elderly people, aged between 60 and the mid-70s. They can sometimes be cancerous but more than half of cases are benign.

Common underlying causes of cutaneous horns are common warts, skin cancer and actinic keratoses, patches of scaly skin that develop on skin exposed to the sun, such as your face, scalp or forearms.

Cutaneous horns can be removed surgically but this does not treat the underlying cause.

The origin of Satyr Legends, Pan and Horned Gods of Pre-Christianity Paganism and possibly the Christian Devil???

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton



U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pictured through a video viewfinder as she speaks during a news conference in Amman September 16, 2010.… Read more »
REUTERS/Ali Jarekji (JORDAN)