The skeleton of a medieval “vampire” discovered in Bulgaria is to be transported back to the town of Sozopol when archaeologists unearthed it last year.

The skeleton will be exposed in Sozopol’s newly renovated museum, Bulgarian National History Museum director Bozhidar Dimitrov told reporters on Thursday.

“People in Sozopol are hoping that the vampire would attract many tourist groups,” Dimitrov said, adding that the skeleton may become one of the top global destinations for “vampire tourism.”

The so-called “vampire” skeleton is one of a man with an iron stick in his chest. He was buried over 700 years ago and was stabbed multiple times in the chest and the stomach, as his contemporaries feared that he would rise from the dead as a vampire.

Over 100 buried people whose corpses were stabbed to prevent them from becoming vampires have been discovered across Bulgaria over the years, according to Dimitrov.

The "vampire" skeleton was included in the National Geographic ranking of the 10 most popular news pictures for 2012. According to the editors, it shows that the fear of vampires is much older than Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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