During the restoration of Tokat castle, located in northern Turkey, researchers made a gruesome discovery: the dungeon where Vlad the Impaler, the blood-thirsty ruler behind the Dracula legend, is believed to have been imprisoned in the mid-1400s.

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, ruled mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans and he is revered as a folk hero in Romania for his protection of the Romanian population both south and north of the Danube.

His practice of impaling his enemies gave him the cognomen “Impaler”.

Vlad III is believed to have been imprisoned in the ancient castle of Tokat along with his brother Radu in the 15th centure. Turkish archaeologist Ibrahim Cetin told Hurriyet Daily News that the team found two dungeons “built like a prison.”

“It is hard to estimate in which room Dracula was kept, but he was around here,” he said.