In Germany, a man was discovered buried with large stones on his chest to prevent him from “rising from the grave”

During excavations around a 17th-century gallows in Germany, archaeologists have uncovered the grave of a man who was weighted down with stones – apparently to prevent him from rising from the dead as a “revenant”.

The grave, near the town of Quedlinburg in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, is one of at least 16 graves discovered at the gallows site, where criminals were executed by hanging from the 1660s until the early 19th century.