Another discovery found by chance! This time it was a Roman tombstone that a couple from New Orleans discovered in the backyard of their house. This Roman tombstone belongs to a soldier who lived almost 1,900 years ago. This extraordinary find has triggered an international investigation involving the FBI, Italian museums, and a team of researchers working together to return the artifact to its home country, Italy. So, let’s learn more about this surprising discovery.
An unexpected finding in New Orleans
Everything started when Daniella Santoro and her husband Aaron Lorenz decided to clean the backyard of their home in the neighborhood of Carrollton, in New Orleans. While pulling weeds and clearing debris, they noticed a large stone buried in the soil. At first, they thought it was just part of the pavement or a regular garden rock.
However, Santoro, who is an anthropologist in the Tulane University, noticed something strange: a stone had Latin inscriptions carved, which was the language of the ancient Roman Empire. Obviously, she was so curious and she talked to D. Ryan Gray, archaeologist from the University of New Orleans, to know his opinion.
Gray first thought it could be an ancient tombstone from the city, since New Orleans has many cemeteries over former burial grounds. But, after seeing the Latin text, he recognized it was something way older and more valuable: an authentic Roman tombstone.
The story of a soldier of the Roman Empire
To check its origin, Gray sent pictures of the tombstone to Harald Stadler, professor at the Innsbruck University (Austria), who shared them with his brother who is an expert at Latin. Also, Santoro asked Susann S. Lusnia for help, professor Classical Studies at Tulane University. Both experts reached the same conclusion: the stone was a truly Roman tombstone.The carved inscription in marble read:
“To the spirits of the departed. Sextus Congenius Verus, soldier of the Praetorian Fleet of Misenum, born among the Bessi tribe of Thrace, lived 42 years and served 22 in the army on the trireme Asclepius. His heirs, Atilius Carus and Vettius Longinus, made this for him, as he deserved.”
This inscription revealed the identity of Sextus Congenius Verus, a Roman soldier who served in the Praetorian Fleet of Misenum, an elite naval force of the Roman Empire. He lived 42 years, served 22 years in the army, and was originally from the Bessi tribe, part of the region known as Thrace. Experts confirmed that the tombstone dated back to the 2nd century A.D., making it almost 1,900 years old.
Even more astonishing, it matched a piece listed as missing after World War II from the Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia, a coastal city northwest of Rome.
From Roman Italy to a Luisiana garden
Once the tombstone was confirmed to be authentic, they wondered about how a Roman tombstone from the 2nd century reached a garden in New Orleans.
The first investigations focused on the history of the house where it was found. Registry showed that it belonged to the Simon family between 1909 and 1991 and when Frank Simon, the original owner, passed away, his daughters inherited the house but none of them had links with Europe nor antiques.
Then, researchers analyzed the possibility that a veteran neighbor from World War II had brought the stone as a memory. However, military records from the National World War II Museum revealed that this man had served only in the Pacific, not in Europe, so he could not have brought the artifact back.
The biggest clue came when Dr. Lusnia traveled to Italy for research and visited the Civitavecchia Museum. There, she discovered that the tombstone appeared in a 1954 inventory, but that list was based only on old documents — no one had actually seen the stone since World War II. This suggested that the tombstone disappeared during Allied bombings in 1943–1944, when the museum was heavily damaged. After the liberation of Rome, U.S. troops from the 34th Corps of the Fifth Army passed through the area.
Giving the Roman tombstone back
Due to its huge historic value, experts reacted very fast. Tess Davis, director of the Antiquities Coalition, advised contacting the FBI’s Art Crime Team, which specializes in recovering stolen cultural property. The FBI took the Roman tombstone and it’s now under custody while its repatriation to Italy is arranged.
The Civitavecchia Archaeological Museum has expressed excitement about the return of Sextus Congenius Verus’s tombstone and plans to celebrate its arrival with a special event.
So, what began as a simple backyard cleaning day in New Orleans ended up revealing a Roman artifact lost during World War II, reconnecting the Roman Empire with the modern world nearly two thousand years later.
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