The skeleton, dating from 550-700AD, was found with metal spikes through its shoulders, heart and ankles which has revealed details of one of the few ‘vampire’ burials in Britain.
It is believed to be a ‘deviant burial’, where people considered the ‘dangerous dead’, such as vampires, were buried to prevent them rising from their graves to plague the living.
John Lock, chairman of Southwell Archaeology, said the body was one out of a handful of such burials to be found in the UK.
“A lot of people are interested in it, but quite where it takes us I don’t know because this was found in the 1950s and now we don’t know where the remains are,” he said.
Lock said no one could be sure why the body was staked in the way it was.
He said: “People would have a very strong view that this was somebody who, for whatever reason, they had a reason to fear and needed to ensure that this person did not come back.”
