Ancient Roman Grave Marker Uncovered in New Orleans Garden Deposited by US Soldier's Granddaughter

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

In statements that all but solved an global archaeological puzzle, Erin Scott O’Brien shared with regional news sources that her grandfather, the veteran, displayed the ancient artifact in a cabinet at his dwelling in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood prior to his passing in 1986.

She explained she was not sure the way Paddock ended up with an item documented as absent from an Italian museum near Rome that lost a large part of its holdings during second world war bombing. But the soldier fought in Italy with the US army throughout the conflict, tied the knot with Adele there, and came home to New Orleans to pursue a career as a musical voice teacher, she recalled.

It was also not uncommon for troops who were in Europe throughout the global conflict to return with mementos.

“I assumed it was simply a decorative piece,” O’Brien said. “I was unaware it was a millennia-old … historical object.”

Regardless, what the heir originally assumed was a plain marble tablet ended up being passed down to her after Paddock’s death, and she put it as a yard ornament in the back yard of a house she acquired in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. She neglected to remove the artifact with her when she moved out in 2018 to a couple who found the object in March while removing overgrowth.

The couple – anthropologist the expert of the university and her husband, Aaron Lorenz – understood the item had an writing in ancient Latin. They contacted academics who determined the item was a tombstone memorializing a circa second-century Roman seafarer and military member named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Moreover, the team discovered, the tombstone fit the account of one documented as absent from the local institution of the Rome-area town, near where it had initially uncovered, as an involved researcher – UNO specialist the archaeologist – explained in a publication published online recently.

Santoro and Lorenz have since handed over the artifact to the authorities, and efforts to repatriate the artifact to the Italian museum are under way so that museum can properly display it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans area of Metairie, said she thought about her grandpa’s unusual artifact again after Gray’s column had received coverage from the global press. She said she reached out to a news outlet after a discussion from her former spouse, who informed her that he had come across a report about the artifact that her grandfather had once owned – and that it truly was to be a artifact from one of the history’s renowned empires.

“We were in shock about it,” O’Brien said. “The way this unfolded is simply incredible.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a comfort to learn how the Roman sailor’s headstone ended up near a residence more than 5,400 miles away from Civitavecchia.

“I expected we would compile a list of potential individuals connected to its journey,” the archaeologist stated. “I never imagined we would locate the precise individual – thus, it’s thrilling to learn the full story.”