Vintage Roman Empire Grave Marker Uncovered in New Orleans Yard Deposited by American Serviceman's Heir

The historic Roman tombstone recently discovered in a lawn in New Orleans appears to have been received and abandoned there by the granddaughter of a US soldier who was deployed in Italy in the second world war.

In statements that all but solved an international historical mystery, Erin Scott O’Brien informed local media outlets that her grandpa, Charles Paddock Jr, displayed the historic item in a display case at his residence in New Orleans’ Gentilly area before his death in 1986.

O’Brien said she was uncertain the way her grandfather ended up with an object documented as absent from an museum in Italy near Rome that lost most of its collection because of World War II attacks. Yet Paddock served in Italy with the armed forces in that period, wed his spouse Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a vocal coach, the descendant explained.

It happened regularly for troops who served in Europe during the second world war to come home with keepsakes.

“I just thought it was a piece of art,” the granddaughter remarked. “I was unaware it was a millennia-old … historical object.”

In any event, what O’Brien initially thought was a plain marble piece turned out to be handed down to her after Paddock’s death, and she put it as a garden decoration in the back yard of a house she bought in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. O’Brien forgot to remove the artifact with her when she sold the house in 2018 to a pair who uncovered the stone in March while clearing away undergrowth.

The couple – anthropologist Daniella Santoro of Tulane University and her husband, the co-owner – understood the artifact had an writing in ancient Latin. They sought advice from researchers who concluded the item was a tombstone dedicated to a circa 2nd-century Roman seafarer and serviceman named the Roman individual.

Additionally, the researchers learned, the tombstone matched the details of one listed as lost from the local institution of Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had originally been found, as one of the consulting academics – UNO archaeologist D Ryan Gray – wrote in a article released online Monday.

Santoro and Lorenz have since handed over the artifact to the FBI’s art crime team, and plans to send back the item to the Italian museum are ongoing so that museum can properly display it.

O’Brien, who resides in the New Orleans area of Metairie, said she recalled her grandpa’s unusual artifact again after the archaeologist’s article had been reported from the global press. She said she got in touch with a news outlet after a conversation from her ex-husband, who shared that he had seen a article about the artifact that her grandpa had once owned – and that it truly was to be a artifact from one of the planet’s ancient cultures.

“We were utterly amazed,” she commented. “The way this unfolded is simply incredible.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a satisfaction to learn how the Roman sailor’s headstone ended up behind a residence more than a great distance away from Civitavecchia.

“I expected we would compile a list of potential individuals connected to its journey,” the archaeologist stated. “I didn’t really expect to actually find the actual person – so it’s pretty exciting to know how it ended up here.”