CW: Death, child death, burial traditions. All images have been censored, but can be easily accessed online.
Across the more death-centric parts of Twitter, TikTok and throughout endless ‘Weird Facts’ Facebook pages, one jarring face becomes strikingly familiar; that of Anna Maria Von Stockhausen.
This one black and white image of a desiccated human body, strapped down with criss-crossing tape, is a visceral one for sure. Any mummified body whereby the mouth and features are held open or taut with centuries-old skin understandably incites a primal reaction of fear and repulsion. Much like the bodies of Everest (or other such mountain ranges), where the remains of unfortunate climbers are found frozen in place decades after they perished, the appeal of Anna is a curious, gruesome urge to look at the forbidden. Much like staring out of a car window when passing a crash on a motorway, we can’t help but be fascinated with the unpleasant, dehumanising realities of our own mortality.
But Anna’s remains aren’t presented as a curious photograph of remains found long after her death, but are joined with similar statements that ensures a thousand retweets:
‘Her corpse was cross-strapped due to people fearing that she would return from the dead. In the middle ages, there was a general fear of people coming back from the dead.
Or, alternatively, appealing to the more witchcraft-minded side of the internet:
‘This is the corpse of Anna Maria von Stockhausen. After death she was strapped down to keep her in her grave. According to folklore, Stockhausen was a witch who resurrected herself 5 times.’
The image of Maria has certainly done the rounds on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and even good old tumblr, but all images and references pertaining to this undead mummy lead to the same – pardon the pun – dead link. Similarly, finding any references to witchcraft or resurrection beyond the same heavily-shared images on social media, was nigh impossible. However, judging by the dates of content posted, first came the comment of straps and fear of resurrection (2017), then came claims of witchcraft (2019) with no clear source for the development in Stockhausen’s history.
Putting on my sleuth hat, I followed the broken links from the small amount of tumblr posts that contained source links, finding that most, if not all, led to the same reddit thread.
Posted in 2016 by the delightfully-named Reddit user u/porniswherethedickis, the photograph received thousands of upvotes. The image of the strapped mummy was uploaded to imgur on Oct 20th 2016 with the title ‘Anna Maria von Stockhausen’s corpse, cross-strapped in order to keep her from coming back undead.’ Noticeably, no mention of witchcraft here.
The original source appears to be a German news article, discussing superstitions relating to premature burial and folk beliefs during the middle ages.
The original poster summarises it as follows:
‘There’s really not much info. The German article just gives her name and talks about the general fear in the Middle Ages of people returning from the grave. Time frame was the period of the Black Death in Europe.’
Sadly, the majority of the resultant comments are bad jokes and arguments as to the origin of the phrases ‘saved by the bell’ and ‘dead ringer’ [a) that’ll be boxing, not grave bells, and b) I would tell you, but I have to perform the entirety of Meatloaf’s ‘Dead Ringer for Love’ before I can continue typing…].
However, the Germanic origins of Stockhausen, particularly in relation to plague beliefs, raise interesting folkloric discussions. During plague outbreaks in Germany, the first person to die of the disease (a patient zero of sorts) was called a Nachzehrer (a ‘after-consumer’ or ‘night-consumer’ depending on spelling)[3], who was believed to return from the grave in a zombie/vampire-type manner and attack, kill or consume their family. There are clear similarities with the Slavic vampire, which returns from the grave to attack friends and family. Nachzehrers were also believed to come about via unusual or self-inflicted deaths, not simply through epidemics.
“Pebbles or dried legumes were often strewn into the coffin by the bereaved. According to folklore, the undead would first have to count them before they could begin their malign work. However, because the undead are possessed by the devil, they would never be able to count beyond two pebbles or two peas because the devil cannot utter the sacred number “three” (the symbol of the Holy Trinity).”
“Häufig schütteten die Hinterbliebenen auch getrocknete Hülsenfrüchte oder Kieselsteine in den Sarg. Der Untote musste, so lautete der Volksglaube, diese erst zählen, bevor er mit seinem unheilvollen Treiben beginnen konnte. Da er aber vom Teufel beseelt war, konnte er nie über zwei Erbsen oder Steine hinaus kommen, weil er die geheiligte Zahl „drei“ (Symbol der Dreifaltigkeit) nicht aussprechen durfte.”[4]
Similar to the famous discovery of a body found in a plague pit with a brick in their mouth, Nachzehrers were believed to be killed by placing a coin in their mouth before decapitating the corpse. Nachzehrers were also said to lie in their graves with their thumb in their mouth, with one eye (traditionally the left) open. Also, they could be identified by the sound they made while eating their burial shrouds.[5]
The Nachzehrer myth feeds well into the image of the lashed body, and especially the pained expression of the mummified corpse (after death, when the jaw relaxes, many bodies appear to have a rictus grin or smile; it’s nothing to do with pain.) However, Reddit appeared to fill in the gaps of the witch folklore, in the absence of sources:
Posted by: Themanwhatcan:
“It’s an old story, there’s a bit of folklore that states she was a witch or so she was accused, they killed her 6 times 5 times she came back not unlike Rasputin, the first time they hung her and buried her only to find she had clawed her way out and was captured in a nearby farm, they quickly tied her to a plank and drowned her in the lake, she was checked three times after they dragged her out and buried her again, two days later her grave again was missing a corpse, she was found in her old dwelling cursing and spitting out worms, dirt and water, she was brought before the towns people and a steak driven through her heart again she was buried, four days later the guard in the cemetery had failed to return so the governor and a local priest went to investigate to find a dead guard, already decaying his throat ripped out, she was cornered on the outskirts of the town by an angry mob she was to be burned at the steak [sic], she was tied to an old scarecrow stump from the cornfield and they burned her however only the bottom half of her body would burn as a freak rain storm would put out the flames, her story had grabbed the attention of a religious fanatic and witch hunter who made his way to see this poor woman, he witnessed the rain and said that god has other plans for her and unlike anyone else he leaned over and said ” woman, why won’t you die?” A gurgled voice answered him and cursed the towns people for falsely accusing her and simply asked to be buried away from her late husband that was in the plot next to the one the villagers kept putting her in, she made one simple request and threat that if she did come back no man nor element would stop her from spilling the blood of all the villagers ” tie me down and bury me well away from that man!” They did as she asked and the rest is history.”
Very dramatic, I’m sure you’ll agree. But with no references, we have a witchy German Rasputin and a tethered mummy. After a little German ancestry searching, a potential candidate appeared: Anna Maria von Stockhausen, an aristocratic woman from Ruhrgebiet, making the mummy surely little more than a high class woman in a mortsafe or similar anti-graverobbing contraption? However, nothing in the English language world offered any genuine insight.
I dug a bit further, reverse searching the image and following the paper trail to Anna’s first appearance. That took me to the news outlet, Der Spiegel and the return of my rusty German language ability. In the ‘Angst vor Untoten’, article posted 19/10/2016 by Angelika Franz, an image provided by the Zentralinstitut und Museum für Sepulkralkultur reads ‘Die gegen ihre Wiederkehr im Sarg verschnürte Anna Maria von Stockhausen (mit Kreuzverschnürung)’ or, Anna Maria von Stockhausen tied the coffin against her return (with cross tying).
The article goes on to document the fears experienced by Germanic people during the middle ages through the lens of new archaeological interests. Franz explains that archaeological interest in European Christian burials is a relatively new development, due to the absence of interesting grave goods. Similarly, few academics sought to investigate burial superstitions, due to the fear of ridicule from their colleagues
Alongside Stockhausen’s image is an entire gallery of lashed burials; she is not a special case, but cherry picked from a long-dead burial tradition.
The article cites the relatively recent discovery of such burials, when in 2004 the medieval town of Dypensey (now Diepensee) was controversially relocated to make room for an extension to Berlin airport. During the archaeological surveys, the local cemetery was excavated, finding graves that dated back to the 13th and 14th centuries, notably from periods of plague outbreaks. According to the report, archaeologists found 422 bodies, of which 25 (6%) were presented as ‘suspicious’ burials, interred with the belief that the deceased may not really be dead.
As reported in Der Spiegel (translated):
‘The villagers had tried very hard to bind the bodies to the grave forever: they had weighted them down with stones or turned them on their stomachs. They had cut off their legs and covered them with a wooden board. In one case, a deceased person’s head was even later chopped off.’
In the associated gallery, three images are from the same museum source (the Central Institute and Museum for Sepulchral Culture), and all three were members of the von Stockhausen family.
The first, Hans August von Stockhausen died in 1780 and was ‘pinned’ in place with a zig zagging ribbon, to prevent him from climbing out (although there is a strong argument that these ribbons are simply decorative rather than fulfilling any practical purpose). Secondly, Johanna Christina von Stockhausen (d 1757) was tied in place with criss-crossing ribbon, the third was Anna. Notably, the first two images appear to be young individuals, perhaps accounting for the proliferation of Anna’s image – a dead adult is far easier to retweet than someone cut down in the throes of youth.
Digging deeper into the museum collection, several items relating to the von Stockhausen family have been preserved. Sadly, many of these are relating to death; a large number of the Stockhausen coffins are in the museum’s possession.[6] In the museum’s mourning collection is a small, black, wooden coffin for the unnamed twin daughters of Anna Maria and her husband, Hans Ernst who died after only a few hours.[7] Similarly, Johanna and Hans’ coffins are in the museum collection, showing that Johanna was 4 years, 4 months and 3 days old at her death.
The Stockhausen name applies to several families of noble status (Westphalian) with their collective family estate found in the town of Meschese in the Hochsauerland district. Other Stockhausen families laid roots in Thuringia and in Lower Saxony. The objects within the museum collection directly relate to the von Stockhausen family crypt in Trendelburg, where the Stockhausens call a stunning fairytale castle home. Images from inside the crypt suggest that many of the von Stockhausen caskets are beautifully painted and decorated, perhaps contributing to the desire to photograph their contents.
While I found the first appearance of Anna online to be via Der Spiegel, the images themselves are clearly far older. Their original source remains a mystery, but one I hope to crack in time. If anyone reading has any insight as to their origin, please do get in touch.
So why was Anna Maria Von Stockhausen regarded as the internet’s most famous undead witch? A simple case of mistaken identity. A search for Anna’s name brings up the tragic life of another woman, Anna Maria Schwegelin (1729-1781), the last woman to be tried for witchcraft in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany). Unlike the Stockhausen family, Schwegelin was not born into comfort and wealth, but worked as a domestic servant in public inns, living with a limiting leg injury and endured periods of time in both a leper colony and the poor house during her lifetime. Schwegelin’s story is a familiar one of potential mental illness, religious devotion and superstition, whereby her own obsessions with good and evil (joined with the appearance of her disabilities) were heightened to create a communal figure of evil onto which countless misfortunes could be pinned. She was arrested in 1775 and taken to the monastery town of Kempten where she was tried as a witch and sentenced to execution. In the age or torture and violence, she narrowly avoided such trauma by suddenly and freely admitting that she did indeed have a pact with the Devil, although she’d never cast an evil spell or curse upon her community. Somehow, despite her confession and sentence, Stockhausen was never executed and died many years after her trial in 1781. A memorial fountain now memorialises Schwegelin in the centre of Kempten.
I approached the image of Anna, thinking that this claim of a resurrected witch would be wholly debunked, but am happy with the compromise. Superstitions are dangerous things, especially in pandemics, and the fear of Maria’s corruptive body is as relevant today as it was at her burial. While we may not fear the return of our dead relatives, rationality and a little human understanding goes a long way. She might be a frightening picture on the internet, but ultimately she was also a living woman, with a life of her own whose details are sadly lost to time. As much as an ‘undead witch’ piques our interest, can we not be satisfied with an airport extension and some unusual coffins? I certainly know that’s enough for me.
This article was first published to my patreon supporters in 2021 and has since been updated for a public audience.
Source: burialsandbeyond.com
