When Daniella Santoro and her husband, Aaron Lorenz, went to clear weeds behind their home in New Orleans’ Carrollton neighborhood, they discovered a heavy marble slab with an inscription in Latin. Santoro, an anthropologist at Tulane University, was at first concerned that her house was sitting atop a forgotten local cemetery. But what she and experts found subsequently was even more astonishing: a 1,900-year-old Roman tombstone that originally sat atop the grave of a sailor from the empire’s Mediterranean fleet.

Roman soldier’s 1,900-year-old tombstone mysteriously found in a New Orleans backyard. Credit: D. Ryan Gray / Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

The tablet, about a foot wide and slightly longer, bore a long inscription in Latin. As soon as pH๏τographs of it were shared with classical scholars in the United States and Europe, including Tulane’s Susann Lusnia and Harald Stadler of the University of Innsbruck, the message was translated. It read:

“To the Spirits of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for Sєxtus Congenius Verus, soldier of the praetorian fleet Misenensis, from the tribe of the Bessi [of Thrace], (who) lived 42 years (and) served 22 in the military, on the trireme [warship] Asclepius. Atilius Carus and Vettius Longinus, his heirs, made (this) for him, well deserving.”

The words identified the stone as the tombstone of Sєxtus Congenius Verus, a Roman sailor from Thrace. This mariner served on board the warship Asclepius in the imperial fleet based at Misenum, near Naples. Specialists confirmed that it was a genuine second-century CE funerary monument. But how did it end up in the yard of a New Orleans residence?

Daniella Santoro and Aaron Lorenz with the ‘mystery stone’ in front of them. Credit: Susann Lusnia / Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

Archaeologist D. Ryan Gray of the University of New Orleans traced the inscription to an item previously documented in Italy. A nearly identical headstone had been exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia, an ancient port northwest of Rome. The museum itself was destroyed in an Allied bombing during World War II, and the artifact was listed as missing after the war.

The evidence hinted at a possible explanation: the stone disappeared during wartime chaos and somehow arrived on the other side of the Atlantic. It may have been taken by an American soldier in the Civitavecchia area after Allied troops liberated Rome in 1944—a time when looting and illicit antiquities trade were common.

Historical investigation revealed that the New Orleans property had been owned by Frank Simon, a shoe company manager who resided there for decades before he died in 1945. He was not a likely candidate to have brought the artifact home. A neighbor who served in the U.S. Navy also appeared to be a possible link, but subsequent military records showed he had served only in the Pacific theater. The true route of the gravestone’s journey to Louisiana is not yet known.

The sH๏τgun house. Credit: D. Ryan Gray / Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

With help from the Antiquities Coalition, they contacted the FBI’s Art Crime Team, which now holds the headstone while arrangements are made for its repatriation to Italy.

Further research confirmed the artifact’s provenance as matching the destroyed Civitavecchia museum’s records. Local curators were ecstatic that the missing Roman tombstone had survived and would soon be coming home.

While the full story of its transatlantic journey may never be known, the rediscovery of Sєxtus Congenius Verus’ tombstone is a reminder of how fragments of the ancient world can unexpectedly surface in modern lives.

More information: Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans