The ancient Roman villa at Poggio Gramignano lay in the hills near the Tiber, 7 km from ancient AmeliainUmbrian territory. It was a large luxurious villa rustica with farm-estate attached. It has been partially excavated.[4]
It was built in the late 1st c. BC when it included large room (oecus) with supporting columns and a unique flat-top pyramidal ceiling; the foundations and soil of the hill could not support the great weight leading to collapse of the colonnade and other southern rooms around the early 2nd century AD; in the early 3rd century, walls and support buttresses were built to try to stop further slippage but from this time the villa began to fall into ruin although it was still partially occupied; in the mid 5th century many rooms were reused as a cemetery for at least 47 children up to 3 years old who died perhaps of malaria.
Nearby is the site known as the "Children's Necropolis", dating to the mid-5th century AD. The site includes the burial grounds of new-born and aborted fetuses. Some of the burials seem to have been so-called "vampire burials". These burial practices, such as inserting a stone into the mouth of the deceased, have been interpreted as means to prevent the rising of the dead. Modern research has indicated that many of the burials were victims of malaria, a disease whose origins were unknown until the 19th century. Vampire burials may have been practiced in the hope that the spread of disease would be curtailed.[5]
^A. Marzano, Country Villas in Roman Central Italy: Reassessing the Evidence, A Tall Order: Writing the Social History of the Ancient World, J. Aubert et al. Leipzig 2005, ISBN3-598-77828-7
