Antique Roman Empire Tombstone Uncovered in New Orleans Garden Deposited by American Serviceman's Heir

This ancient Roman grave marker newly found in a garden in New Orleans seems to have been inherited and abandoned there by the female descendant of a military man who was deployed in Italy during the global conflict.

In statements that nearly unraveled an international historical mystery, Erin Scott O’Brien told regional news sources that her grandfather, the veteran, stored the historic relic in a display case at his home in New Orleans’ Gentilly area until he died in 1986.

The granddaughter recounted she was uncertain precisely how the soldier acquired an object documented as absent from an museum in Italy near Rome that had destroyed a large part of its holdings during second world war bombing. However her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the armed forces during the war, married his wife Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a singing instructor, O’Brien recounted.

It was fairly common for soldiers who fought in Europe during the second world war to return with souvenirs.

“I just thought it was a piece of art,” the granddaughter remarked. “I didn’t realize it was an ancient … artifact.”

Anyway, what the heir originally assumed was a plain marble tablet ended up being inherited to her after her grandfather’s passing, and she put it as a yard ornament in the back yard of a residence she bought in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. The heir overlooked to remove the artifact with her when she moved out in 2018 to a couple who found the object in March while removing brush.

The couple – anthropologist Daniella Santoro of the university and her husband, Aaron Lorenz – recognized the object had an engraving in the Latin language. They contacted researchers who concluded the item was a grave marker honoring a around second-century Roman seafarer and soldier named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Furthermore, the group learned, the grave marker corresponded to the details of one listed as lost from the local institution of the Rome-area town, near where it had initially uncovered, as an involved researcher – UNO archaeologist D Ryan Gray – explained in a column published online Monday.

The homeowners have since handed over the artifact to the federal investigators, and attempts to send back the artifact to the Italian museum are in progress so that facility can properly display it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans community of Metairie, said she thought about her grandfather’s strange stone again after Gray’s column had received coverage from the global press. She said she contacted a news outlet after a conversation from her former spouse, who informed her that he had seen a report about the item that her ancestor had once had – and that it in fact proved to be a item from one of the world’s great classical civilizations.

“It left us completely stunned,” O’Brien said. “It’s just unbelievable how this came about.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a satisfaction to discover how the ancient soldier’s tombstone made its way behind a home more than a great distance away from its original location.

“I expected we would compile a list of potential individuals connected to its journey,” Gray said. “I didn’t anticipate discovering the exact heir – making it exhilarating to uncover the truth.”