Vintage Roman Empire Headstone Found in New Orleans Yard Left by US Soldier's Descendant

This old Roman memorial stone recently discovered in a back yard in New Orleans seems to have been passed down and abandoned there by the heir of a American serviceman who fought in Italy during the World War II.

Through comments that all but solved an global archaeological puzzle, the heir told area journalists that her grandpa, the veteran, stored the 1,900-year-old artifact in a showcase at his home in New Orleans’ Gentilly district prior to his passing in 1986.

She explained she was uncertain the way the soldier ended up with an object reported missing from an museum in Italy near Rome that misplaced the majority of its artifacts because of World War II attacks. Yet her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the US army throughout the conflict, married his wife Adele there, and came home to New Orleans to pursue a career as a singing instructor, O’Brien recounted.

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

“I assumed it was simply a decorative piece,” O’Brien said. “I had no idea it was a 2,000-year-old … relic.”

Anyway, what O’Brien initially thought was a nondescript stone slab ended up being inherited to her after her grandfather’s passing, and she placed it down as a yard ornament in the back yard of a residence she acquired in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. She neglected to remove the artifact with her when she sold the property in 2018 to a husband and wife who uncovered the stone in March while removing brush.

The couple – researcher Daniella Santoro of the university and her husband, the co-owner – realized the artifact had an inscription in ancient Latin. They consulted academics who determined the item was a headstone memorializing a around second-century Roman mariner and soldier named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Additionally, the group found out, the tombstone fit the account of one reported missing from the municipal museum of Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had first discovered, as one of the consulting academics – University of New Orleans specialist the archaeologist – explained in a column released online earlier this week.

Santoro and Lorenz have since turned the headstone over to the FBI’s art crime team, and efforts to send back the artifact to the Civitavecchia museum are ongoing so that museum can exhibit correctly it.

O’Brien, who resides in the New Orleans area of Metairie, said she thought about her ancestor’s curious relic again after the publication had been reported from the worldwide outlets. She said she got in touch with journalists after a discussion from her previous partner, who told her that he had seen a report about the item that her ancestor had once had – and that it truly was to be a item from one of the planet’s ancient cultures.

“We were utterly amazed,” the granddaughter expressed. “It’s just unbelievable how this came about.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a relief to discover how Congenius Verus’s gravestone traveled behind a house more than thousands of miles 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.”