Vintage Roman Headstone Discovered in New Orleans Backyard Left by US Soldier's Descendant

The old Roman tombstone recently discovered in a lawn in New Orleans seems to have been inherited and left there by the heir of a US soldier who fought in Italy throughout the World War II.

In statements that nearly unraveled an global archaeological puzzle, the granddaughter informed local media outlets that her grandfather, the veteran, stored the historic relic in a cabinet at his residence in New Orleans’ Gentilly area prior to his passing in 1986.

She explained she was unsure exactly how her grandfather ended up with something documented as absent from an Italian museum near Rome that had destroyed the majority of its artifacts during World War II attacks. Yet her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the American military throughout the conflict, tied the knot with Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a vocal coach, she recalled.

It was also not uncommon for soldiers who were in Europe in World War II to bring back souvenirs.

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

In any event, what O’Brien initially thought was a plain stone slab was eventually passed down to her after Paddock’s death, and she set it as a lawn accent in the back yard of a house she purchased in the city’s Carrollton district in 2003. O’Brien forgot to take the stone with her when she sold the house in 2018 to a pair who found the object in March while removing brush.

The pair – anthropologist the expert of the academic institution and her husband, the co-owner – recognized the item had an writing in the Latin language. They consulted academics who concluded the item was a tombstone honoring a circa 2nd-century Roman seafarer and soldier named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Furthermore, the researchers found out, the grave marker fit the details of one listed as lost from the city museum of the Rome-area town, near where it had first discovered, as an involved researcher – the local university archaeologist D Ryan Gray – wrote in a publication published online Monday.

Santoro and Lorenz have since handed over the artifact to the federal investigators, and plans to repatriate the item to the Civitavecchia museum are under way so that institution can properly display it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, said she thought about her grandpa’s unusual artifact again after the publication had been reported from the global press. She said she got in touch with journalists after a discussion from her previous partner, who shared that he had seen a news story about the item that her ancestor had once had – and that it actually turned out to be a piece from one of the history’s renowned empires.

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

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a satisfaction to find out how the ancient soldier’s tombstone ended up behind a home more than 5,400 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,” Dr. Gray commented. “I never imagined we would locate the precise individual – thus, it’s thrilling to learn the full story.”