Bury a woman with a brick in her mouth so she can’t eat other dead people. That’s the height of scientific knowledge in medieval times. Scientists had dug up a 16th century mass grave and found a woman with a brick in her mouth because the people in her Italian village thought she was a vampire. The mass grave was the final resting place for people who died from bubonic plague. Apparently, villagers somehow identified others as vampires, shoved bricks in their mouths, and buried them so that they couldn’t bite other people and spread the plague or eat other dead people.
What surprises me most is how prevalent this sort of thing was. I searched “woman buried with brick in mouth” on YouTube and videos about grave sites where this happened all over the world popped up. It’s like there was a “How to keep vampires from spreading the plague” manual that made the rounds. Chapter 3, page 35, “Be sure to pry the vampire’s jaws apart wide enough to fit a standard 2 inch by 6 inch brick. Be careful not to cut your fingers on a fang. Then we’ll have to brick you too.”
Anyway, the scientists were able to recreate her skull and face in order to see if it were possible to have shoved a brick in her mouth before or after she died. They concluded that it was possible that it was done before.