by Mogk, Matt
Some baffled experts speculate that a notable figure from the third century must have been given the rare honor of a sheet-metal burial, but others speculate that the coffin was meant not as an honor but to keep the dead man from getting out.
Managing director of the project Jeffrey Becker cautions about making any assumptions about the mysterious remains:
All we can say so far about the contents is that the lead wrapping contains a human skeleton—or at least a portion thereof—as there is visible bone at the open, foot-end of the sarcophagus.61
What makes the discovery all the more bizarre is that Romans were not normally buried in coffins at all, and when they were, the coffins were always wooden. And because the Romans didn’t embalm their dead, instead burying the washed body in a shallow grave, it stands to reason that a zombie from that era would have no trouble clawing back to the surface.
Clearly, there is no evidence of a widespread zombie outbreak in ancient Rome, but if a traveling warrior or nobleman did return home with an unknown sickness that caused him to die slowly and then rise from his grave, this mysterious lead casket just may have been the practical solution for his terrified family.
At this point there were daily reports all over the news about the horrific wounds our soldiers were suffering. Some images had also been leaked online: bodies torn to pieces, sometimes barely anything left for a family to bury.
—The Zombie Combat Manual (2010), Roger Ma
Several months later and fourteen hundred miles away, a second team of archaeologists discovered an ancient Roman mass-grave site in York, England, that dates back to the first century. Eighty skeletons were found showing signs of extremely violent injury and decapitation. Could zombies be to blame?
Though some experts claim this must be a gladiator cemetery, lead investigator Kurt Hunter-Mann cautions against hasty assumptions, explaining that they have no conclusive understanding of what they’ve unearthed:
At present our lead theory is that many of these skeletons are those of Roman gladiators. But the research is continuing and we must therefore keep an open mind.62
Roman amphitheaters are known to have existed in several settlements across England, but no evidence of a gladiator arena has ever been discovered in York, which has forced researchers to fall back on the notion that it must be a graveyard for soldiers. But the high number of decapitations undermines this theory.
If this finding is the end result of an ancient zombie outbreak in England, the battle wounds and headless corpses could be easily explained.
UNDEAD IN THE AMERICAS
The primitive Jivaro people of the Ecuadorian Amazon are one of many headhunting cultures found throughout history, but what set them apart was their singular practice of carefully collecting each head they removed, then boiling it in a scalding pot of water for up to three weeks.
This process created tiny shrunken heads, an oddity made famous by explorers at the turn of the last century. But even stranger is the Jivaro’s reason for going through such trouble. They claimed their ancestors had faced a great demonic menace many hundreds of years before, and each generation was obligated to continue the practice or risk total tribal extinction.
Is it possible that the tradition dates back to a time of conquest, in which the Jivaro came across a tribe already consumed by some undead plague? Death by decapitation would not work in that case, as detached zombie heads would continue to look around and gnash their teeth, much to the horror of the Jivaro, no doubt.
The extreme ritual of sewing the eyes and mouth shut before boiling the disembodied head would then be a logical step to take when faced with such a bizarre and ungodly enemy as a primitive zombie horde. Furthermore, cooking the brain until it became a worthless pile of mush would no doubt be an effective way to ensure that any remaining life force was removed.
Because the Jivaro were known for their ferocity in battle, they would likely have been able to overcome the zombie threat they faced so long ago. But if they did, in fact, face an undead horde, the fight left a permanent mark on the tribe, as evidenced by the tradition of head shrinking and the dire warning passed on from one generation to the next.
Dead Meat (2004)
ELENA:
Do you know how many have been infected?
BAZEL:
I’m not sure. Must be spreading quickly, though. I came across four or five of them before I ran into you. I’m Bazel, by the way.
ELENA:
Elena.
BAZEL:
I’m the local grave digger.
Moving north, we look to one of the most advanced tribes in the early Americas, the Anasazi of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. They thrived for hundreds of years in the fertile red desert canyons, growing their culture and building impressive ancient villages. But at the end of the thirteenth century, the Chaco Canyon people mysteriously and permanently disappeared. Though no universally accepted reason for this sudden decline has been found, recent archaeological discoveries have led to the suggestion that a zombie plague may have been at work.
In 1997, a large quantity of Anasazi human remains were uncovered that showed evidence of death by violent dismemberment and cannibalism. Other excavations of sites from that same area have revealed many more unburied, dismembered, and partially eaten bodies. These findings are particularly disturbing because there is nothing in the Anasazi tradition to explain why a peaceful people would resort to eating other human beings while they were still alive. Furthermore, the possible explanations of war and famine have been largely ruled out by experts.
If cultures as disparate as the ancient Roman Empire and warrior tribes of Ecuador may have experienced their own infestations of the undead, could the mystery at Chaco Canyon be just another reminder of the fragility of civilization in the face of an overpowering zombie threat?
On the second weekend of March 2011, the Far West Popular and American Culture Association held its twenty-third annual convention at the Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Presentation topics included the influence of photography in Civil War–era newspapers, the portrayal of homosexuality on cable television, and the rhetorical, linguistic, and political relevance of rapper Lil Wayne. But the star of the event was unquestionably the modern zombie.
In his ninety-minute keynote address, Professor H. Peter Steeves of DePaul University discussed the meaning of zombies in contemporary culture, with references to everything from Freudian theory to Pinocchio. He concluded that not only are zombies a cultural juggernaut, but it’s entirely likely that they will someday replace the human race when natural selection finally passes us over. As Steeves put it:
You may think that this is all rather depressing, and it is. But sometimes the point is not that it is all going to end. Sometimes it’s about how it all ends.
At that very moment, actors dressed as rotting zombies invaded the ballroom, stalking the crowd of scholars and academics and attacking a planted audience member who promptly changed into a flesh eater himself. Steeves threw on a replica of Michael Jackson’s famed red leather jacket, and the zombies joined him onstage for an extended dance routine to the sound of Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Thriller, released in 1982, is the bestselling album of all time, and the companion video for its title song is arguably the most iconic ever made. It features a voice-over by horror legend Vincent Price and dancing zombies that rise from the grave “to terrorize your neighborhood.” “Thriller” is the only music video preserved in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry as a cultural, historical, and artistic treasure. It’s been decades since Jackson first taught zombies to dance, and they still haven’t stopped.
In 2007, corrections officers at the remote maximum-security Filipino prison in Cebu videotaped 1,500 inmates gyrating in an exact restaging of the famous “Thriller” dance. Posted online, the video has had upwards of 100 million views and was featured in Time magazine as one of the most popular viral videos ever.
That same year, Thrill
the World was launched as an annual free event in which dancers from across the globe simultaneously perform Jackson’s zombie dance. Today hundreds of different venues in dozens of countries participate, with the numbers growing each year. In 2009, Guinness World Records certified the largest “Thriller” dance to date when nearly 14,000 university students dressed as zombies and lurched around Mexico City’s Plaza de la República.
Despite these massive outbreaks of zombie popular culture and nearly fifty years of cultural relevance and commercial success, the mainstreaming of zombies in recent years has many suggesting that they’re just a fad doomed to fade. Scott Kenemore, bestselling author and zombie expert, couldn’t disagree more, saying that what some characterize as a current craze is actually just the modern zombie ascending to its appropriate place in our cultural landscape:
Vampires are everywhere. But people forget that Dracula was written in 1897. It’s had over 100 years to percolate into our books, movies, and media. Zombies haven’t had as much time to fully seep into the culture, but I think that’s just what we’re seeing right now.
The power of the modern zombie lies in its ability to rise within a population, spreading and infecting new people and leading to eventual domination of the species. Like the dancing hordes that continue to spring up in greater numbers online and across the blogosphere, one zombie invariably leads to two, then ten, then ten thousand. This is key in their dramatic representation onstage, on-screen, and in print and is also a fundamental reason for their popularity at the grassroots level.
Zombies are here, they’re hungry, and they’re not going away—certainly not from popular culture, anyway.
KNOW YOUR ZOMBIES: MICHAEL JACKSON
Thriller (1983)
Michael Jackson is arguably the most famous zombie of all time. In his video “Thriller,” a young couple on a date goes to the movie theater to be scared by fictional werewolves. The real horror awaits them outside as the dead rise on their walk home.
Before his death in 2009, Michael Jackson made dozens of wildly popular music videos, but none as iconic as “Thriller.”
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX GALLEGO
29: WHY ARE ZOMBIES SO POPULAR?
Legions of fans across the globe believe that there is almost nothing that can’t be made more fun, more frightening, or more socially relevant by adding zombies, and in most cases, they’re right. But what is it about the undead that has so many of us endlessly clamoring for more? Why are they so popular?
Robert Kirkman is the creator of The Walking Dead, a long-running graphic novel turned critically acclaimed cable television drama about a ragtag band of survivors struggling to find their way in a zombie-infested world. The series broke ratings records in its first season, making Kirkman an established figure in contemporary zombie culture. I sat down with him to talk shop. Here’s what he had to say about increasing interest in all things zombie in recent years:
People come up to me all the time to say they love the show even though they weren’t zombie fans before. But The Walking Dead isn’t about the zombies, it’s about people. It’s about us. It’s about how we respond to crisis. And that’s the case with any good zombie story. So I tell them they actually were zombie fans before; they just didn’t know it yet.
Certainly, the immense popularity of zombies is partly a result of the uncertain times in which we live. Terrorist attacks, economic meltdowns, and environmental calamities dominate the headlines. New and deadly diseases are evolving at an alarming rate, prompting even the most stoic of experts to warn of potential doom. Disaster seems a foregone conclusion. It’s not a matter of if, but of when and where.
But it’s not just that a zombie pandemic seems to speak to our anxieties about the tragedies and destruction we see in the world around us. Many argue that zombies ring true because they are us. They are nothing more than the personification of our own failings come back from the dead to eat us out of existence before we screw things up any more than we have already. Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand famously observed that modern man is an abject zombie on a forced march through a meaningless life, and she may have a point.
For the first time in human history, more of the world’s population lives in crowded urban centers than rural environments, and in most industrialized nations, that number is quickly approaching 90 percent. Correspondingly, global job satisfaction is at its lowest point in more than two decades,63 with the younger generations leading the pack in unhappiness. We grow up. We get uninspiring jobs to pay the rent. We work our whole lives to no real end. We get promotions. We get laid off. We find new uninspiring jobs that are pretty much the same as the old ones. We sit in traffic and wonder how it came to this. We grow old. Our health fails. We die. Another zombie bites the dust.
Before becoming one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century, Franz Kafka had a career as a corporate lawyer at an insurance agency in Prague. He hated everything about it, stating that office work should not be considered a proper occupation but, rather, a form of decomposition:
What do I do? I sit in an office. It is a foul-smelling factory of pain, in which there is no sense of happiness. And so I quite calmly lie to those who inquire after my health, instead of turning away like a condemned man—which is in fact what I am.64
I hope your job doesn’t stink as badly as Kafka’s did, but as a veteran of the corporate grind myself, I certainly know where he’s coming from.
Another contributing factor to the modern zombie’s current relevance is that it has no long-standing literary tradition. In fact, the last dozen years aside, zombies have almost no literary tradition at all. Unlike most other popular monsters, zombies don’t reflect the ancient superstitions of a bygone age. They’re not born of myth or legend. There is no romance in the living dead, no classic hero or moral lesson to counterbalance their grinding advance. They aren’t driven by religious commitment, lost love, or some misguided yet noble pursuit. Their curse can’t be cured by a battle victory, a kiss, or a kind word. They are the here and now. They are the painful reality of what we must suffer in this life. Simply put, they are the most compelling, relevant, and enduring monster of the last half century.
And they happen to scare the bejesus out of me.
The Simpsons, Episode 17:2 (2005)
BART:
Your screams when zombies chomp your brains will warn me so I can get away.
LISA:
There’s no such thing as zombies.
BART:
Glad to hear you say that, because the person who doesn’t believe in zombies is always the first to get feasted upon.
LISA:
Stop scaring me!
30: AT THE MOVIES
Dollar for dollar, horror is the most popular and profitable film genre, with its comparatively low production costs and obsessively loyal fan base. It’s also, unfortunately, the least respected. Dozens of celebrated actors got their start in successful horror franchises, including Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun (1993), and Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th (1980). But horror movies themselves are routinely dismissed by critics and ignored during awards season. And the least respected subgenre in horror, deep at the bottom of the barrel, is unquestionably the zombie movie. Even comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield, who made a fortune out of being the butt of his own jokes, recognized the lowliness of zombies. As he riffs in one of his routines:
I walked into a bar and asked the bartender to make me a zombie. He took one look and said, “God beat me to it!”
In March 2010, the eighty-second Academy Awards ran a three-minute video tribute to modern horror in film. Zombies were featured on-screen for less than one second. It was a flash so brief that if you blinked, you’d miss it. Other movies receiving considerably more time in the tribute were the 1988 comedy Beetlejuice, the Steve Martin musical Little Shop of Horrors, and the romantic teen juggernaut Twilight. None of these is actually a horror movie, underscoring the widespread
confusion that exists about what horror is, even within the governing body of the industry.
If horror is confusing, then zombies are a complete mystery. While other film monsters enjoy clearly defined characteristics and widespread acceptance, the modern zombie continues to languish in the shadows while scholars and film critics make sweeping statements about the living dead that don’t hold up to the harsh light of reality. In fact, scholars and critics who write about zombie films often include a wide range of horror, comedy, and action movies in their zombie category, despite the fact that no actual zombies are ever featured on-screen. This irresponsible cataloging does the subgenre a great disservice and literally drives me insane.
NIGHT’S INFLUENCE
I recently rewatched Night of the Living Dead with my twelve-year-old nephew. He’d never seen it before, so I explained to him that each zombie movie has a specific set of rules for its undead creatures to follow. Some are afraid of fire. Some are slow and lumbering. Some can open doors and use tools. Some can even speak. He thought about this for a few minutes and then jokingly asked, “Is one of the rules in this movie that the zombies have to stay twenty feet away from the camera?”
Insulting Night is fighting words in my book, no matter how old you are. But in my nephew’s defense, he was referring to repeated wide shots of zombies milling about outside an isolated farmhouse while survivors inside argue over what to do to stay alive. I had to remind myself that because he’s grown up on contemporary zombie video games and movies, the notion of the dead rising to eat the living is nothing new to him. But when Night of the Living Dead was first released on an unsuspecting public in the late 1960s, it scared the wits out of just about everybody, including some of the biggest names in modern horror.