The fear of the “living dead” especially vampires is a familiar theme in today’s entertainment, appearing everywhere from countless retellings of Dracula to series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But the idea is far older than modern fiction. Ancient Mesopotamia played a major role in shaping early beliefs about blood-drinking spirits and undead beings, laying the foundation for the world’s first vampire legends and, surprisingly, it was young women who were considered the most frightening of all.
The vampire may be best known as a figure from medieval folklore and gothic stories, but the concept of the “restless dead” the spirits of people who died too soon and were thought to rise again to harm the living is far older, rooted deep in ancient human fears.
So how far back does the vampire myth truly go? That’s the question explored by historian John Blair, author of Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to The New World, during an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast.
According to Blair, the earliest origins of vampire-like beings and other undead figures do not begin with Bram Stoker in the 1800s, or even in medieval Europe. Instead, they trace back to ancient Mesopotamia. Some of the world’s oldest written records describe anxieties about the dead returning to torment the living a fear that has endured for thousands of years. And the roots of this belief may stretch even further into humanity’s distant past.
Mesopotamia’s Living Dead
Humanity’s fear of the dead seems to stretch back to a time long before writing existed.
Archaeologists have found prehistoric graves suggesting that ancient people took deliberate steps to keep the dead from rising. Some bodies were weighed down with heavy stones, others were decapitated, and some were tightly bound all signs that the living feared the possibility of the dead returning.
Historian John Blair points out that “there is some archaeological evidence from prehistory, going all the way back to the Paleolithic.” But clearer evidence only appears once written records emerge.
These written references first show up in Mesopotamia.
Mesopotamia located in what is now Iraq and parts of Syria, Turkey, and Iran was home to some of the world’s earliest civilizations, including the cities of Uruk, Ur, and Babylon. It was also the birthplace of the first writing system, cuneiform.
The earliest Mesopotamian tablets do not mention the undead. But by the Neo-Assyrian era, around the 7th century BC, this changes. Texts from this period begin describing beings who rise from the grave revealing that fears of the living dead were already deeply embedded in ancient Mesopotamian belief.
These 9th-century BC orthostates from Tell Halaf show the hero Gilgamesh flanked by two bull-headed demigods who raise a sun disc above him, imagery drawn from Mesopotamian myth. Gilgamesh was celebrated across the ancient Near East as a hero and semi-divine king, while bull-man figures and solar symbols evoked themes of power, protection, and cosmic order central to Mesopotamian religion.
“We start to get some texts which do appear to refer to what happens,” Blair says, “and what you should do, if corpses start walking around; if they rise up and fight against the living.”
These ancient Mesopotamian texts gave priests instructions on how to respond when a dead body became spiritually dangerous. This shows that fear of the restless dead wasn’t just superstition it was a recognized part of their religious system. These concerns were tied to deeper cultural beliefs about how life and death were supposed to unfold and infants.
These demons weren’t vampires, and nor were they the living dead. But they fit into a broader sense of fear about unfulfilled lives, and how they might come back to haunt the living.
This bronze head of Pazuzu, likely from Nimrud and dating to the Neo-Assyrian period (c. 800–550 BC), represents one of Mesopotamia’s most striking supernatural figures. Though a fearsome demon associated with destructive winds, Pazuzu also served as a powerful protector, warding off the deadly forces especially the demoness Lamashtu believed to threaten mothers and infants.
How These Ideas Spread Across the Ancient World
Mesopotamian beliefs had a powerful influence on the cultures of the ancient Near East. As Mesopotamian cities expanded through trade, warfare, and cultural exchange, their supernatural ideas including fears of the restless dead traveled with them.
Greek mythology, for example, includes lamiae, female monsters who preyed on children, which closely resemble earlier Mesopotamian demon figures. Magical writings from the Hellenistic world contain spells designed to protect people from the returning dead. Roman authors also wrote accounts of corpses rising from the grave to seek revenge or justice. Early Christian thinkers, drawing on these inherited traditions, warned that improper burials could disturb the spiritual realm and cause unrest among the dead.
This transmission of ideas isn’t surprising. Many Mesopotamian myths shaped later religious and cultural stories even the Biblical flood narrative may trace its origins to an older Mesopotamian tale.
By medieval times, these ancient concepts had transformed into the familiar European legends of revenants and vampires. What’s striking, Blair notes, is how consistent the theme remains across thousands of years. These stories reflect universal human anxieties: the shock of unexpected death and the fear of losing order within a community.
Centuries before gothic literature introduced Dracula or other famous vampires, Mesopotamian priests were already writing instructions on how to handle dangerous corpses. For Blair, this is strong evidence that the earliest versions of vampire-like beings appeared far deeper in history than most people realize.
