Link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-was-this-17th-century-polish-woman-buried-with-a-padlock-on-her-toe-and-an-iron-sickle-across-her-neck-180989408/

New research suggests that the people who buried the young woman took precautionary measures to stop her from coming back to life and exacting revenge on them

What did these items signify? Researchers led by Dariusz Poliński, an archaeologist at Poland’s Nicolaus Copernicus University, have spent the past four years trying to find an answer, and now, they’ve published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

The team’s analysis suggests that locals viewed the woman—now dubbed “Zosia”—as a threat, blaming her for misfortunes such as disease and famine for reasons that still remain unclear. To prevent Zosia from rising from the dead and causing further mayhem, they initially put a lock around her toe, then later returned to the grave to place the sickle over her neck.

Long story short: anti-zombie protection

Yeah, the blade on the throat is the same as a stake in the heart...

"This body might come alive, so we're making sure"

If a body reanimated, the blade was supposed to just cut the head off. But the move from actual "just in case" routine decapitation and just putting a blade there is a pretty huge leap.

So yeah, primative, but primative because they were advancing, this was the line between an actual decapitation you believed was required, and a ritual just to reassure everyone we didn't have to keep mutilating every dead body. If modern people started doing it because of legitimate zombie concerns, it would be different.

I know what you mean by modern, but it should be asserted that this happened in the modern era

It was Francis. He hates vampires.

Kinda makes you think that maybe you shouldn't treat someone so horribly that you believe they will be driven to remain in this world beyond death in order to take revenge upon you.

Could be they thought she was a witch or changeling? Cold iron has long been thought to block magic.