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Where were the first vampire accounts?

The following is information that I have found:

"The first myth on vampires predates back to roughly 4000 B.C.E. from the ancient Sumer civilization. The ancient Sumerians existed in Mesopotamia and facts prove that by 3100 B.C.E., their culture brought the earliest archeologically proven dynasty; the first cities were built along with establishing the city and state religions were set up and practiced. The Sumerians is the first civilization to receive our attention as the first and oldest myth of a vampire-like being that is the Ekimmu.

The Ekimmu, like many vampires of folklore, was believed to have been created when someone died a violent death or was not buried properly. Although not referred to out right as a vampire, the way they are described as helps us to draw the conclusion that these creatures were real intentional psychic vampires. They were described as demonic in nature, severely rotting corpses, phantom-like entities that roamed the earth, unable to rest, in search of victims. In reference to The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, by R. Campbell Thompson, the creatures preferred the attack pattern of finding a helpless individual, then tormenting this victim until a priest or priestess could come and perform a ritual or exorcism to force the vampire off.


Uruku

Another creature from the Mesopotamian that fits this role as vampire-like creatures is that of the Uruku or Utukku. The Uruku is actually referred to as a "vampyre which attacks man" in a cuneiform inscription. There is very little known about the Uruku, but, the mere fact that it has been referred to as a "vampire" deems it worthy to mention here.


The Seven Demons

Another "race" of vampires is also mentioned as a vampiric entity which was much feared: "The Seven Demons". These beings have been mentioned in many Mesopotamian religious texts and incantations, like the following excerpt taken from a Sumerian banishment (taken from The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, by R. Campbell Thompson):

Demons that have no shame,
Seven are they!

Knowing no care...
Knowing no mercy,
They rage against mankind:
They spill their blood like rain,
Devouring their flesh [and] sucking their veins.
Where the images of the gods are they quake...

They are demons full of violence
Ceaselessly devouring blood.
Invoke the ban against them,
That they no more return to this neighborhood...

The creatures described above clearly have attributes similar to immortal blood-drinking vampires. The blood drinking and vein sucking make it clear to assume that they are vampires of some sort indeed. The eighth line in the excerpt indicates that the creatures are afraid of the images of the Sumer gods, or of the temples in which most god images are kept."

From the following link:
http://hellhorror.com/vampires/vampire_mythology/

This is a key foundational question we find oft asked and discussed here, which discussion is incredibly important and one scholars continue to debate to this day. The debate continues it can't be answered without first answering the even more basic question of what, exactly, a "Vampire" is. And that question, likewise, remains largely unanswered.

For some, a vampire is a blood-drinking revenant from the grave. For others, a vampire is a psychic energy feeder, possibly dead and possibly not. For others, a vampire is more like a meddlesome ghost who causes disease and calamity to a community yet is not actually seen, though can manifest as points of light and shape-shift into inanimate objects such as vegetables (believe it or not) or even a common chair (this is a common folk definition in Eastern Europe). For others, a vampire defines any mortal Human who simply adopts and follows a particular "path" that may or may not include blood drinking. For yet others, the "vampire" is defined as depicted in fictional books and movies (sparkly skin, anyone?). And for yet others ... well, you get the idea.

Talk about muddying the waters.

Understandably given the extreme variety and number of these different definitions, trying to determine when each of these different definitions had its origin so as to identify the "first vampires" becomes an exercises in frustration if not outright futility because even if you can find such, you haven't accomplished anything if you still can't determine which definition for the term "Vampire" is correct.

After all... if we define the "Vampire" as a blood-drinking revenant and scour history for possible parallels for this definition in ancient history, yet this definition is not the historically correct one... then we've accomplished nothing.

The point is... we can't put the cart in front of the horse; we can't begin to answer this question until we have first put to bed the question of what an actual "Vampire" is.

So how can THAT question be answered? Actually... there is a way:

Given the constantly expanding number of definitions for the term "Vampire," the only hope of finding out the original definition is, understandably, to try winding the clock back and investigating what the term "Vampire" meant when first coined. After all... only those who INVENTED the term knew what they were defining.

So... time to conduct in-depth investigation into the term's etymology. Here are a couple great starting points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire#Etymology

http://doaav.blogspot.com/2010/04/q-with-bruce-mcclelland-part-2.html


If further discussion is of interest on this, I'll respond after reading others' responses.

First use of the word "vampire" or the actual practice?

You must also first define the word, and realize that the practices involved may go back further than the use of that particular word.

I believe the actual practices involved do go back further than the first historical uses of the word "vampire."

Taoist sexual practices of "joining energy" or "joining essences" are one example, but it was not called vampirism by the Taoists.

very interesting posts --- do you think vampires have evolved - and thats why we see a difference in the original tellings of vampires to the ones we see today?

"It is believed the word "vampire" or "Vampyre" (taken from the Serbian usage) first entered the English language when the story was printed in two English periodicals, the London Journal and the Gentlemen's Magazine in 1732."

~ The Vampire Book: Encyclopedia of the Undead

I believe the usage of this term and where it was coined arose in Eastern Europe, where dead beings arose from their graves and tormented the living, spreading diseases and such. As for the whole debate on where and when the term Vampire and Vampyre should be used is a little obscure, I'd think. Vampyre sure sounds more regal and old-fashioned compared to the modern 'vampire'.

Bobby: I fully agree: it is almost a foregone conclusion that whatever a Vampire historically was (before all the changes to the term and its countless reinventions by fiction writers), it existed prior to others' naming it and defining it. Were this not so, there would have been nothing predating the coining of the term to name/define. So, of course, the "Vampire" existed prior to its being named.

As for its sexuality or "practices," if any, it would seem logical any such... if such exist... would be fodder for later discussion once we have nailed down a likely first definition for the term, itself.


Mischa76: Have Vampires evolved? If you are talking actual Darwinian evolution... then, this is doubtful given that it takes hundreds of thousands if not millions/billions of years for noticeable evolution to occur. If you meant the term figuratively (e.g., culturally, mythologically)... then, of course, terms and their meanings "evolve" every few years and sometimes less. These changes and modifications are what have caused the enormous variety of "vampire" definitions muddying the waters. Thus, yet again, the KEY IMPORTANCE of going back to the original first usage of the term to learn what it meant and what/whom it described when first coined.


lordess: Thank you for beginning the effort of turning the clock back to seek out the original definition.

You are correct that the first usage of the term "vampire" was 1734 in English, though it did appear a bit earlier (1732) spelled thusly: vampyre. Yet the term, itself, is not English but was simply Anglicized from earlier usages in other languages predating all such.

Working our way back, we find prior to English it was in French, then German, then Hungarian (notice how we keep working our way east... toward the term's actual point of origin?)... and, finally, Russian, over 700 years earlier!

Wikipedia covers this etymological/geographical journey back into time and place fairly well, as follows:


The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first appearance of the word vampire in English from 1734, in a travelogue titled Travels of Three English Gentlemen published in the Harleian Miscellany in 1745.[14] However, it should be noted that the original article did not actually use the spelling vampire, but used vampyre.[15] Even earlier English language references to the word vampire can be found in the form of vampyre. An example is found in re-telling the famous case of Arnold Paole, where the London Journal of March 11, 1732, describes vampyres in Hungary (actually northern Serbia) as sucking the blood of the living.[16] Vampires had already been discussed in French[17] and German literature.[18] After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Oltenia with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires".[18] These reports, prepared between 1725 and 1732, received widespread publicity.[18]

The English term was derived (possibly via French vampyre) from the German Vampir, in turn derived in the early 18th century from the Serbian вампир/vampir,[19][20][21][22][23][24] when Arnold Paole, a purported vampire in Serbia was described during the time Serbia was incorporated into the Austrian Empire.

The Serbian form has parallels in virtually all Slavic languages: Bulgarian and Macedonian вампир (vampir), Croatian vampir, Czech and Slovak upír, Polish wąpierz, and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upiór, Ukrainian упир (upyr), Russian упырь (upyr'), Belarusian упыр (upyr), from Old East Slavic упирь (upir'). (Note that many of these languages have also borrowed forms such as "vampir/wampir" subsequently from the West; these are distinct from the original local words for the creature.) The exact etymology is unclear.[25] Among the proposed proto-Slavic forms are *ǫpyrь and *ǫpirь.[26] Another, less widespread theory, is that the Slavic languages have borrowed the word from a Turkic term for "witch" (e.g., Tatar ubyr).[26][27]

Czech linguist Václav Machek proposes Slovak verb "vrepiť sa" (stick to, thrust into), or its hypothetical anagram "vperiť sa" (in Czech, archaic verb "vpeřit" means "to thrust violently") as an etymological background, and thus translates "upír" as "someone who thrusts, bites".[28]

An early use of the Old Russian word is in the anti-pagan treatise "Word of Saint Grigoriy" (Russian Слово святого Григория), dated variously to the 11th–13th centuries, where pagan worship of upyri is reported.[29][30]


Thus... the oldest known term from which we can be certain our modern word "vampir(e)" directly derives is the Slavic word "upir," the plural form of which is "upyri" and which beings were actually worshiped prior to the advent of Christianity to the Russias and Eastern European areas (prior to 10th Century CE), as per the "Word of Saint Grigoriy", a Russian chronology. This is the best-evidenced etymology and the most widely accepted by scholars and linguists.

So... we can be fairly certain that, finally, we have arrived at the original term first used to described the beings we, today, call... Vampires.

The etymological progression went something like this:

Upir (Russian), then Vapir/Vampir (Bulgarian... and where the first actual Vampire accounts are found), then Vampir/Vampyr (German/Austrian/French) and, finally, the English spellings of Vampyre and Vampire.


So... what did the term "upir" actually mean, from whence the Bulgarians got their term "Vapir/Vampir," and wrote about the beings this term describes?

Dr. Bruce McClelland, the author of the book "Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead", does a pretty good job dissecting this term and arrives at some intriguing theories, which he discusses, here:


http://doaav.blogspot.com/2010/04/q-with-bruce-mcclelland-part-2.html


Should anyone wish to read his views and discuss, I'll wait to hear back.

My dear Upir, your research in the field is a thing I`ve always admire, but about a supposed political-religious opposition in Balkans only a specialist in early Christian religion should be trusted.

1. The so called conflict in Balkans between christians and pagans NEVER existed.

The king Charles the Great of the French imposed the christian religion by force and most of you know the story.
This NEVER happened in Balkans! In the eastern part of the Roman empire the Christianity was forced by the masses to be accepted by the emperor, so it was the other way around. It`s obviously that mr. Bruce A. McClelland either does not know that, either ignores the aspect.
So there are no forces and no battles between Christians and pagans in the Balkans. Absolutely none!



2. The Bogomils appear in the VIIIth century and are definitely not the first labelled as "eretics" in Balkans!

The Bogomilism appeared 5 hundred years later in Balkans, so is not directly related of the conversions to christianity that tok place in Balkans aprox. between 150 and 335 when became the official religion of the Empire.
Even to the North of the Danube we have strong Christian communities (see for example the story of Sabbas the Goth) even before 400 AC.
Related to that story, the ones who tortured the future saint and martyr were the Goths of Atanaric, not the Slavs that wern`t even there at that time.
Jordanes, Procopius and other late Roman authors provide the earliest indisputable references to the early Slavs in the second half of the 6th century AD.

So I won`t trust the opinion of mr. Bruce McClelland about the specific areas and the speculation about the terms of Bulgaro(not slavs!)-Macedonian(not an ethnic group, but a wing of Thracians) vampir (sic) and Serbian(slavs!) vrkolaka.

The Thracians and Bulgarians never came over the Serbians who were slavs so they never had to impose their christianity. The story is more complicated then that. And there is no conflict between these cultures and words. All is a speculations of a person that is not a scholar in the field.


3. The blood-suckers are not a modern invention of the XVIIIth (or better said XVII) century!

The craze exploded during the XVIIth century with the case of Arnold Paole because that was in contradiction with the philosophy of the Austrian Empress who wanted to destroy witchcraft and superstition (E.T.A. Hoffmann openly laughs about that in his Zinnober story), but the story is not the invention of that time.
The revenants who WERE SUCKING blood from their relatives or young girls were encouraged by the Orthodox Church even before that century. Later the Ortodox churches(from Vallachia, Moldavia and even Transilvania) who encouraged the belief in revenants, and ghosts, started to be annoyed by the practice and forbid it, but it was too late. In 2007 in Romania was given a law that didn`t allow to people to un-burry the corpses of the relatives after 7 years since they died.
I will come with the written evidence if needed for all that I stated here if you want.

In England they were called openly sanguisuga, blood drinkers documented even in the XVth century I think.

It`s just in England they were called blood-drinkers and in Central/Oriental parts of Europe they were called vampirs, strigoi, Vricolakas and so on, but some of them were sucking the blood and all of them the vital energy of the living for various reasons.
They were not living persons who were sleeping with the victims but supernatural evil-doers from beyond the grave.

The origins of the undead blood-suckers named vampires is lost forever in the fog of the times. No one can tell if the term is Slavic or Thracian or Kazar or Turkish. As Africans use to say, if you can date it, then is not ancient.

Maybe it comes from the animist ancient belief that the blood is the carrier of the life(and maybe it`s not just a superstition).
This belief is predating the Arians (sorry for the word that became "evilized" after WW II) or I should say Indo-Europeans, to come to Europe. During Neolitic red ochre was used to dye the bodies of the dead, so this kind of symbol is not invented by and not specific to Christianity.

But is another maybe.

The word "vampyre" was used in English literature during XiXth century in the same time with the variant spelled "vampire"(Byron Vampyre and Shelley writes it Vampire), so there is not one that pre-dates the other. During XXth century usually the spelling vampire was used.

My Dear Dragonrouge,

I have never argued for or against there being conflicts between Christianity and Paganism in the Balkans; such was never part of this topic or the ensuing discussion. And there are many points made by Dr. McClelland in his theory of who and what Vampires actually were which I strongly disagree and have discussed such with him in correspondence over the past few years.

However, with regard to his study of the etymology behind our modern English term, Vampire, his is the most accurate, most factually based and the most widely accepted in academic circles... and with very good reason.

And that etymological studies quite conclusively reveals that originally the term was, indeed, the Russian, "upir/upyr", which term had absolutely nothing to do with revenants from the grave, blood-drinking or otherwise.

It is Dr. McClelland's opinion that originally this term referred to "heretics" who engaged in Pagan rituals and feasts associated with animal sacrifice. And I have strongly disagreed with this given the undeniable fact that the original term was discovered written in 1047 CE by an Eastern Orthodox (hardly heretic!) Priest who voluntarily called HIMSELF "Father Vampire" ("Popa Upir") in a letter he addressed to the very Christian Czar-Apparent, Prince Yaroslav of Novgorod Russia !!! And no priest would have ever dared to call himself a heretic and, in fact, declare his very NAME to mean "heretic" or member of such a heretic group! To do so would have been to condemn him to excommunication (at least) and likely prosecution as a heretic, himself! That Dr. McClelland completely ignores this obvious error and this argument is ... frankly ... unconscionable, and yet he does.

This theory, that "upir" originally meant "one who feasts" sexually ... and to degrees unknown and impossible for normal Humans ... also provides a full explanation why, after Christianity dominated the are with its anti-sexual attitudes and dogmae together with its inherent misogynist views of females and their superior sexuality, later villified and demonized such "upir"s and ... later ... began spreading lies about them to scare women away from them... such as being Satan's servants, revenants from the grave, and last of all... blood drinkers.

Apparently, some admin type here deleted my entire entry providing Dr. McClelland's entire explanation of the Eastern Slavic meaning of the term, "upir" as most likely derived from the verb "to feast" with the "u" prefix meaning "one who..." Thus, upir means "feaster" and has likely reference to both the pagan sexually orgiastic feasts of that area as well a the original Christian parallel: the equally orgiastic feasts known as the "Agape" feasts that were condemned and forbidden by the Roman Church... and were also condemned in the New Testament book of Jude, which warns of those descending from the Fallen Angels having introduced such amongst the 1st Century Christians... in other words... upyri (vampires), right there mentioned in the Bible, if this theory is correct.

As a native Russian Speaker I can say that the term Upir or as it is now known in Russian,Pir means feast.However the word Pirovat actually means ``to make merry``.It is in some way possible that These feasts were not only about the consumption of Food and drink as they appeared on days which had nothing to do with Festivals,harvests and religious days.But they tended to always corresspond to the early middle of the commonly accepted Menstrual cycle in women.That`s the time when a woman is most fertile and can produce the best offspring.So again we have a Festival where one ``makes merry`` which corressponds to the commonly accepted fertile time in a female menstrual cycle.From this one can infer that sexual acts occured in order to obtain offspring as in the beginnings of European culture the chances of miscarriage or early death were very common.History however is not without a sense of irony.In an account written in 1450,the writer details that during the reign of Constantine, a group of court jesters and fools told the Roman emperor that they could do a better job of running the empire. Constantine, amused, allowed a jester named Kugel to be king for one day. Kugel passed an edict calling for absurdity,drinking and most importantly a removal of ``good custom`` or morality on that day, and then it became an annual Event,named after the Profession of its creator.
The removal of good custom,also could mean the removal of sexual rules.Tying this to the idea that the 1st of April was also a celebration of ``the Earth`s Blessing`` or fertility,we can infer that it also had something to do with sexual acts which may have been normally forbidden or frowned upon

It is also true that accounts of what we now call ``vampires`` can be found in Sumerian,Egyptian and Babylonian cultures.Considering that Sumerian culture is considered to be one of the first civilizations in human history,they must have had some Basis for their Vampire stories,as they were also scientists,scholars and architects of a high standard

If what we now think of as dark activity, or evil is attached to vampirism in later times, perhaps it wasn't in earlier times and kinda considered traditional practices by some. Then maybe they didn't think it important enough to write much about it or something only warriors dealt with and a very private issue. Many older cultures didn't even have writing systems. I know that they use to drink the blood of the fallen and sometimes eat their flesh as well as that of relatives at times. Various tribes related did a lot of these things and many of them were head hunters. Other cultures around the area might have been scandalized by actions they took as commonplace and demonized them. From that point all sorts of legends and superstitions sprung up. I've read that some of them preferred to fight at night and sleep during the day which would add to the stories passed around.

(The story Vampyre was written by Polidori by the way. I have it in my e-zine.)

Each culture, as they migrated added to the myths and they created this undead being who rose from the grave to drink blood from their victims. In some cases, projected like OB projection to take blood or life force. I think all of this is the evolving of superstition over time and took on different faces depending on the culture. Certain nomadic tribes took extra horses just in case they ran out of food and would live off of their blood. They didn't understand the death process and in some cultures they burned the bodies and in others it was not allowed due to religious beliefs so they buried bodies in places like Santorini where the nature of the earth preserved the bodies longer. There are a lot of things to account for these stories. It's just a word and most likely not the original idea that the word ended up meaning. We also know that early on bodies were not embalmed and people who were not dead got buried and not all of them buried deeply in the ground. There are stories about so called vampires rising out of their graves going on a killing spree killing relatives and quite frankly I believe being buried when they weren't dead in the first place may account for some of that. There is no definitive definition for vampire or whatever word you prefer. Now they are starting to find cultures older than Sumerian so we shall see over time if any of these legends turn up in older civilizations.

well, most of the people belive that Dracula Tepeš was the first vampire, but that is just made up story. He was just a smart guy, who killed his apponents and stuck there heads on the sticks.

But the first ''true vampire'' whit a name was Jure Grando, a young man that died at young age. He was from region called Istra (in old days teritory of Slovenia, and nova days croatia). The case of Jure Grando was first documented in somewhere between 1600 and 1650 by philozofer Valvasor. Who wrote: one day after he died, he was woken up. People who had seen him said that he was like a walking dead. He was pale as snow, his dark hair have a red glow, and his eyes can see in your soul. Evry night when someone saw Jure infront of own house someone has died. And the one who died that night was biteen and have not even one droop of blood left in his body. And evry time that someone die in bizarre way, even in those days they people of that region say that this is a work of strigoj Jure or vampire Jure.

If you wane know more just google it. Even wikipedia have a hit.;)

if a vampire is someone who feeds off the energy of others and various forms of energy and weather that don't come from food then who knows who the first one to do that was, in that case it's kind of like asking who was the first one to drink the liquid from cow titties and then eat it once it got stale and chunky