The Source:
No, despite the somewhat misleading bookcover above, that is not where I first read
about this case. Anyway, let's start at the beginning and give you the short article that I found.
You will note that it happens to be in Spanish.
"El mayor cementerio de vampiros fue descubierto por el
arqueólogo Jaroslav Spaçek en la ciudad de Celákovice, situada a pocos
kilómetros de Praga. En dicho cementerio eran inhumados los supuestos
vampiros en las postrimerias del siglo 10 y en la primera mitad del siglo 11.
Es la unica necrópolis del país donde fueron sepultados solamente vampiros o
más exactamente quiénes eran considerados como tales por sus contemporáneos.
En los catorce adultos sepultados a lo largo de varias en el cementerio de
supuestos vampiros, se pueden observar intervenciones antivampíricas."
© Copyright 1997 Radio Prague All Rights Reserved
Radio Prague, Vinohradska 12, 12099 Prague 2, Czech Republic
http://www.radio.cz/
This fragment, dated 11 June 1997, is part of what appears to have been a
news item at the time. It was found on one of the web pages of Radio
Prague. Not by me, but by Sanguinarius who
most kindly brought this item to my attention.
The Case:
For the convenience of those who do not read Spanish, I will
attempt to translate.
"The most important vampire cemetery has been discovered by the archaeologist
Jaroslav Spaçek in the town of Celákovice, which is situated no more than a
few kilometer from Prague. In this cemetery the supposed vampires have been
buried during the last part of the 10th and the first half of the 11th
Century. It is the only Czech necropolis where they buried only vampires, or
to be more exact, those who were supposed to be vampires by their
contemporaries. In the case of fourteen adult corpses that were found within
the cemetery of the supposed vampires it was apparent that anti-vampire
measures had been taken."
The Date:
We have a reasonably exact date considering the fact that these corpses go back such a long time. End of the 10th Century, first half of the 11th Century.
The Place:
We had little trouble finding Celákovice about 20 kilometer to the East of Prague, a little to the North of the main road to Hradec Králové. We also did find the town's website at http://www.celakovice.cz/ . At this stage we can only guess as to the exact location of the cemetery, which could be inside the town, but could just as well be situated somewhere nearby.
Personal Comments:
Considering the sources and the non-sensational nature of this piece of information, I have little doubt about its authenticity.
Possible Follow-Up:
The possible follow-up to this case seems evident. We are definitely planning to go visit Celákovice in the near future. But not before we have done our utmost to find further information about this interesting cemetery.
Thanks for your help:
And of course we do very much appreciate the kindness of the
mysterious Sanguinarius, who appears to be a resident of Kansas, USA. Without
your help it seems unlikely that we would have discovered the above vampire
information which was well hidden away among the pages of Radio Prague. Thank
you very much !
And then we received a message from Marek Janouch, who supplied us with further
information about the Celakovice Cemetery. Information that had been published
in a book called "Kniha Nosferatu - Vampyrska Bible", written by Czech pop musician
Petr Stepan. Thanks to Marek, I now am the proud owner of a copy of this interesting book.
And then there was a message from Yka V. (Jiri Vaner ?) who kindly informed me
about a Czech site that features further information about the Celakovice Cemetery.
Thank you very much Yka !
© 2001, 2007 by Rob Brautigam - NL - Last changed 03 October 2007
News item reprinted by courtesy of Radio Prague.
Links last checked 9 July 2007
