Enlarge / This 1475 letter written by Vlad the Impaler contains proteins suggesting he suffered from respiratory problems, bloodied tears. (credit: Adapted from M.G.G. Pittala et al., 2023/CC BY )

The eponymous villain of Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel Dracula was partly inspired by a real historical person: Vlad III, a 15th century prince of Wallachia (now southern Romania), known by the moniker Vlad the Impaler because of his preferred method of execution: impaling his victims on spikes. Much of what we know about Vlad III comes from historical documents, but scientists have now applied cutting-edge proteomic analysis to three of the prince's surviving letters, according to a recent paper published in the journal Analytical Chemistry. Among their findings: the Romanian prince was not a vampire, but he may have wept tears of blood, consistent with certain legends about Vlad III.

Vlad III was the second son of Vlad Dracul ("the Dragon"), who became the voivode of Wallachia in 1436. Vlad III was also known as Vlad Dracula ("son of the Dragon"), and it was this name that Stoker used for his fictional vampire— dracul means "the devil" in modern Romanian—along with a few historical details he was able to glean about Wallachia. This was a brutal, bloody period of political instability. Vlad spent several years as a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire, along with his younger brother Radu, and his father and older brother, Mircea, were murdered in 1447. Eventually, Vlad became voivode of Wallachia himself—three times, in fact, interrupted by periods of exile or captivity.

Vlad was constantly at war, and it was his brutal treatment of his enemies that led to his reputation as a monster, particularly in German-speaking territories, where books detailing his atrocities became bestsellers. These accounts described how Vlad executed men, women, and children taken prisoner from a Saxon village and impaled them. The more accurate, eye-witness-based accounts also included details about the churches Vlad's army destroyed during plundering raids in Transylvania. Other stories (many likely exaggerated) claimed he burned the lazy and the poor, and had women impaled along with their nursing babies. A well-known woodcut shows Vlad dining while surrounded by impaled people on poles. He died in battle in January 1477, having killed an estimated 80,000 people in his lifetime.

Enlarge / Two Russian Ships of the Line Saluting by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1827), a leading artist of the Danish Golden Age. (credit: Public domain)

Learning more about the materials used on historical paintings—paints, pigments, varnishes, and primers used to prepare canvases—is critical to ongoing conservation efforts. Apparently, many artists of the so-called Danish Golden Age used beer byproducts from local breweries to prime their canvases, according to the results of a proteomics analysis described in a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances.

A number of analytical techniques have emerged over the last few decades to create "historical molecular records" (as the authors phrase it) of the culture in which various artworks were created. For instance, studying the microbial species that congregate on works of art may lead to new ways to slow down the deterioration of priceless aging art.

Case in point: scientists analyzed the microbes found on seven of Leonardo da Vinci 's drawings in 2020 using a third-generation sequencing method known as Nanopore, which uses protein nanopores embedded in a polymer membrane for sequencing. They combined the Nanopore sequencing with a whole-genome-amplification protocol and found that each drawing had its own unique microbiome.

Enlarge / Illustration of an embalming scene in an underground chamber. (credit: Nikola Nevenov)

Most of what we know about ancient Egyptian mummification techniques comes from a few ancient texts. In addition to a text called The Ritual of Embalming, Greek historian Herodotus mentions the use of natron to dehydrate the body in his Histories . But there are very few details about the specific spices, oils, resins, and other ingredients used. Fortunately, science is helping fill in the gaps. A team of researchers used molecular analysis to identify several basic ingredients used in mummification, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature.

Egyptian embalming is thought to have started in the Predynastic Period or even earlier, when people noticed that the arid heat of the sand tended to dry and preserve bodies buried in the desert. Eventually, the idea of preserving the body after death worked its way into Egyptian religious beliefs. When people began to bury the dead in rock tombs, away from the desiccating sand, they used chemicals like natron salt and plant-based resins for embalming.

The procedure typically began by laying the corpse on a table, removing the internal organs—except for the heart. Per Herodotus, "They first draw out part of the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook, and inject certain drugs into the rest" to liquefy the remaining brain matter.