Children’s Cemetery

Archaeologist David Soren and his colleagues believe that they have unearthed the largest infant cemetery ever found in Italy, located about 70 km. North of Rome.

Epidemics are known to have plagued imperial Rome, especially in its later centuries. Documentary evidence shows that in late antiquity malaria (a word which comes from the Italian, meaning “bad air”) was often conceptualized as a demon.

There’s nothing referring to Roman gods, not anything Christian in the place, only what might be called village witchcraft. In fact, it appears the term abracadabra, used in magic, may have originated as a spell against semitertian fever (a form of malaria that appears to have occurred here).

The magical rituals attested to in Lugnano provide further archaeological evidence of the survival of pagan traditions connected to malaria in the countryside of central Italy in the fifth century AD, despite the advance of Christianity.

– This news brought to you on the heels of yesterday’s Tutti i Santi (All Saints’) celebration, followed as it is by today’s Tutti i Morti (literally, All the Dead).