The so-called «witch-girl» from Liguria was just over 13 years old when she died. It is not known with certainty what the cause of her death was, but what archaeologists do intuit is that lThe community of which this teenager was part, in 15th century Italy, was afraid of. Very afraid.
The way she was buried and the heavy tombstone that covered her deathbed have made experts intuit that this girl must have had something tremendously special as well as terrifying, for her people to give her that type of burial, and more. in a holy and strategic area within the beautiful city of Liguria.
Another unique fact to take into account is that the news about the discovery of the so-called «witch-girl» occurred in 2014, but last year A second body from the same period was found. Another girl, but whose story and ending seem to be somewhat darker.
We tell you both stories. Two stories that still have many gaps that experts try to fill with scientific and historical evidence. Two «witch-girls», girls rejected by their loved ones, whose sadness and hardships we can only guess at.
The mysterious tomb of the «witch-girl» of Italy
The team from the Pontifical Institute of Archeology, led by researcher Stefano Roascio, tells us that it is a very unusual burial. We are in Albenga, in the Italian region of Liguriahere where a first body was found in 2014. It was that of a 13-year-old girl whose remains were face down, with her head stuck to the ground so that her mouth was in contact with the earth.
Anthropologists tell us that this way of burying people had a very specific purpose: to prevent that person’s soul from clouding the world of the living. He was «an impure soul.» The researchers were very surprised because these types of burials are seen a lot in Bulgaria or in Eastern Europe, where people who were considered witches or vampires were buried in a similar way:
- Face down.
- With stones or bricks in the mouth.
- Decapitated.
- Nailed into the ground using iron or stakes.
most of These findings featured adult bodies, both men and women who had been rejected by their neighbors to the point of killing them and then putting into practice those rites with which to protect the community. He Evil It had to be contained, the soul of that «being» had to remain attached to the body following specific practices.
However… What had that girl done to be considered evil? The first analyzes of the rest of the girl revealed several things. The first was her age, between 12 and 13 years old. The second, that she suffered from very severe anemia. The porotic hyperostosis on the skull showed that he was suffering from a serious type of disease, because of which hemorrhages must have been very common. If we add to this his pale and feverish appearance, this undoubtedly explains why his people were afraid of him, that his physical image could cause concern, fear and rejection. They considered her a «witch» or even, why not?, a vampire. Although none of this can be proven yet, only intuited.
We were in the 15th century, a time of darkness in which the word «witchcraft» ran arbitrarily through those closed minds.endowed with a religious radicalism where any nuance outside the normal, even illness, was quickly judged as diabolical.
The Ligurian witch girl was in a cemetery, very close to the church of the Martyr San Calocero, abandoned more than 500 years ago. Now, if this fact already seems as sad as it is shocking, it is even more so to know that just a year later, another body was found near this burial site. It was a second girl, somewhat older than the first, about 17 years old.. Her body was in worse condition because it had been burned. The orientation of her remains responded to the same position as the witch-girl, that is, face down.
It is known that she was burned alive and that she was later buried with stones on her body. We are, once again, facing an act of punishment, facing a violent practice against those women unjustly and cruelly accused of witchcraft.
At the moment it is unknown if these two young women had any connection, in fact it has not been concluded if they shared the same moment in time or if there is a distance of a few decades between them. NeverthelessThere are many who speculate that perhaps they were sisters.. We will be waiting for new information to share with you about the witch-girls of Liguria.
If you liked this article, don’t miss our article on the 7 most famous witches in history.