First Posted: 10/2/2014
Vampires are a popular part of the Halloween season and the West Pittston Library is offering people the chance to learn more about them.
No, not vampires like Edward Cullen of the “Twilight”series. The “real” ones.
Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton, an archeologist for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, will lead a lecture entitled “Origins of the Vampire Legend” at the West Pittston Library on Oct. 11.
Hamilton said the lecture will discuss the real life origins of the vampire and how people in the 18th and 19th centuries depicted them to be possible real beings.
“It’s an exploration on the origins of this legend,” said Hamilton. “The whole vampire thing seems to be very popular in modern culture for some reason. Where it came from and what physical basis there might be, there is actually a physical reality that inspired this legend for various political reasons.”
Stories of blood-drinking demons can be found all over the world, but the vampire legend that was the source of Dracula, Nosferatu and vampires in the “True Blood” television series originated primarily in the 17th and 18th century Eastern Europe, including Hungary, Poland and Romania.
This lecture examines the possibility that the vampire legend from southeastern Europe arose from the physiological changes undergone by a dead body as it decomposes and traces the anthropological roots of the legend in later centuries.
“The process (of decomposition) is a very lively one. Nobody slumps down dead, it’s a very active thing,” said Hamilton. “(A human body) moves, erupts, it changes color. Sometimes these processes can take weeks, possibly months and so looking at these processes of decomposition and matching them to vampire activity reports is part of the focus of the lecture. After I discuss that and show some very interesting Japanese drawings, I move to how these 18th century peasant vampires got turned into our contemporary vampires, that we’re familiar with in modern day and I touch on modern day belief in vampires and the ones where people locate ones like in London and 19th century Connecticut.”
Hamilton said her inspiration for researching the historical folklore of the vampire came from a book she read a few years ago entitled, “Vampires, Burial and Death,” published in 1988 by Paul Barber.
The book explores centuries of folklore about vampires and offers the first scientific explanation for the origins of the vampire legends.
“I read it years ago, partly because I’m an archeologist and we have a bit of interest in the process of decomposition and to what happens after the body has been deposited in the Earth,” said Hamilton. “That’s the initial reason I picked it up. I got interested in the whole argument he presents.”
Hamilton said she has been doing lectures on vampires for years and while she admits she does not believe in them, that has never deteriorated the fun she has in traveling to various places and giving her lectures on the history of vampires.
“I don’t believe in vampires, I just thought it was fascinating on its physical basis on the original reports,” said Hamilton. “Not that there weren’t people drinking bloods, but it could be traced back to normal processes of decay, at least according to Paul Barber, and I found his argument pretty convincing.”
Hamilton’s “Origins of the Vampire Legend” will be one of a few series of lectures and discussions hosted by the West Pittston Library.
Jen Moran, the Adult Programming Coordinator at the West Pittston Library said there is more to come throughout the month of October involving the Halloween theme.
She said it’s a yearly thing the library runs every October.
“For the whole month we’re big on doing everything Halloween-related,” said Moran. “In addition to (“Origins of the Vampire Legend”) we’re having Endless Mountains Nature Center come in to do a program all about bats.”
That program will held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday Oct. 23.
