Vampire History from the Middle East

Image credit: "Stockphoto" Image description: A picture of the city of Sanaa in Yemen at night. End description.

Vampire mythology goes all the way back to Mesopotamia. They had plain old demons who drank blood.

In the Persian Empire, there were tales also of creatures who drank blood. We know this today because archeologists have found images of them on pottery shards. Well, you know this today because of archeologists. I remember the Persian Empire. Fun times. In the Ottoman Empire, there were tales of pale, human-like creatures who slept in graves and had fangs and super-strength.

In Ancient Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Sumer, the creature/daughter of the sky god "Lamashtu" drank the blood of children and ate the flesh of men.

Across the Balkan Peninsula, throughout the middle ages, there were tales of blood-sucking creatures who slept all day and were awake from dusk to dawn.

The Kurdish military described a creature simply called The Ghoul as recently as 2017. (That link takes you to a video where they talk about it. Warning: loud.) "The Ghoul" is humanoid with long arms and legs, and eats humans. It screams like an animal and can be heard from far away.

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