Ancient Roman Headstone Discovered in New Orleans Yard Deposited by American Serviceman's Granddaughter

The historic Roman grave marker just uncovered in a garden in New Orleans appears to have been inherited and placed there by the female descendant of a US soldier who fought in Italy in the global conflict.

Through comments that practically resolved an international historical mystery, the granddaughter told regional news sources that her ancestor, the veteran, displayed the ancient artifact in a cabinet at his dwelling in New Orleans’ Gentilly area prior to his passing in 1986.

O’Brien said she was uncertain exactly how her grandfather came to possess an item documented as absent from an Italian museum near Rome that lost most of its collection because of wartime air raids. But the soldier fought 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 happened regularly for soldiers who fought in Europe during the second world war to bring back mementos.

“I just thought it was a piece of art,” O’Brien said. “I was unaware it was a millennia-old … historical object.”

Regardless, what O’Brien initially thought was a nondescript marble piece ended up being passed down to her after the veteran’s demise, and she set it as a garden decoration in the rear area of a residence she bought in the city’s Carrollton area in 2003. O’Brien forgot to retrieve the item with her when she moved out in 2018 to a couple who found the object in March while clearing away undergrowth.

The pair – anthropologist Daniella Santoro of the university and her husband, her spouse – realized the artifact had an writing in ancient Latin. They consulted scholars who concluded the artifact was a grave marker memorializing a around ancient Roman seafarer and military member named the historical figure.

Furthermore, the group learned, the grave marker corresponded to the description of one reported missing from the municipal museum of the Italian city, near where it had first discovered, as a participating scholar – University of New Orleans archaeologist D Ryan Gray – wrote in a publication released online earlier this week.

The homeowners have since turned the headstone over to the FBI’s art crime team, and plans to return the artifact to the Civitavecchia museum are ongoing so that institution can exhibit correctly it.

She, now located in the New Orleans community of Metairie, said she thought about her grandfather’s strange stone again after the archaeologist’s article had been reported from the worldwide outlets. She said she reached out to local media after a conversation from her former spouse, who told her that he had read a report about the object that her grandfather had once owned – and that it truly was to be a piece from one of the planet’s ancient cultures.

“We were in shock about it,” O’Brien said. “It’s just unbelievable how this came about.”

Gray, meanwhile, said it was a relief to find out how Congenius Verus’s gravestone traveled near a residence more than thousands of miles away from its original location.

“I assumed we would identify several possible carriers of the artifact,” Dr. Gray commented. “I never imagined we would locate the precise individual – thus, it’s thrilling to learn the full story.”