Ancient Roman Headstone Uncovered in NOLA Yard Deposited by US Soldier's Heir

This ancient Roman tombstone recently discovered in a back yard in New Orleans was evidently received and left there by the heir of a American serviceman who served in Italy throughout the global conflict.

Through comments that practically resolved an worldwide ancient riddle, the heir informed regional news sources that her ancestor, her grandfather, kept the ancient item in a showcase at his home in New Orleans’ Gentilly district until he died in 1986.

O’Brien said she was unsure precisely how the soldier acquired an item documented as absent from an museum in Italy near Rome that had destroyed a large part of its holdings amid World War II attacks. But her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the US army throughout the conflict, married his wife Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a musical voice teacher, she recalled.

It was also not uncommon for soldiers who fought in Europe during the second world war to come home with mementos.

“I assumed it was simply a decorative piece,” she stated. “I had no idea it was a 2,000-year-old … relic.”

Regardless, what the heir originally assumed was a plain stone slab turned out to be inherited to her after Paddock’s death, and she set it as a yard ornament in the rear area of a home she acquired in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. The heir overlooked to retrieve the item with her when she moved out in 2018 to a couple who found the object in March while cleaning up undergrowth.

The couple – anthropologist the expert of Tulane University and her husband, her spouse – recognized the object had an writing in the Latin language. They sought advice from scholars who concluded the object was a headstone dedicated to a circa 2nd-century Roman sailor and serviceman named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Furthermore, the team found out, the grave marker matched the description of one documented as absent from the city museum of the Rome-area town, near where it had first discovered, as an involved researcher – University of New Orleans specialist Dr. Gray – stated in a column shared online earlier this week.

Santoro and Lorenz have since handed over the artifact to the federal investigators, and efforts to repatriate the relic to the Civitavecchia museum are ongoing so that institution can show appropriately it.

O’Brien, who resides in the New Orleans area of nearby town, said she thought about her ancestor’s curious relic again after the archaeologist’s article had gained attention from the global press. She said she got in touch with journalists after a phone call from her ex-husband, who informed her that he had seen a news story about the item that her ancestor had once had – and that it in fact proved to be a piece from one of the world’s great classical civilizations.

“We were utterly amazed,” she commented. “It’s astonishing how this all happened.”

The archaeologist, however, said it was a relief to discover how the ancient soldier’s headstone traveled behind a residence more than thousands of miles away from its original location.

“I was really thinking we’d have our list of possible people through whom it could have ended up here,” Gray said. “I never imagined we would locate the precise individual – thus, it’s thrilling to learn the full story.”