Ancient Roman Grave Marker Uncovered in NOLA Garden Deposited by American Serviceman's Heir

The ancient Roman memorial stone just uncovered in a lawn in New Orleans was evidently received and abandoned there by the granddaughter of a American serviceman who was deployed in Italy throughout the global conflict.

Through comments that all but solved an global archaeological puzzle, Erin Scott O’Brien informed regional news sources that her grandfather, her grandfather, displayed the ancient artifact in a display case at his residence in New Orleans’ Gentilly area until he died in 1986.

The granddaughter recounted she was not sure exactly how her grandfather ended up with an item documented as absent from an Rome-area institution near Rome that lost a large part of its holdings during wartime air raids. But her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the US army in that period, tied the knot with Adele there, and came home to New Orleans to build a profession as a musical voice teacher, she recalled.

It was also not uncommon for military personnel who were in Europe throughout the global conflict to come home with souvenirs.

“I just thought it was a piece of art,” she stated. “I didn’t realize it was an ancient … artifact.”

Anyway, what the heir originally assumed was a plain marble piece turned out to be passed down to her after the veteran’s demise, and she set it as a lawn accent in the rear area of a house she acquired in the city’s Carrollton area in 2003. She neglected to remove the artifact with her when she moved out in 2018 to a husband and wife who found the object in March while removing undergrowth.

The husband and wife – anthropologist the expert of the academic institution and her husband, Aaron Lorenz – recognized the artifact had an engraving in the Latin language. They contacted researchers who determined the object was a headstone memorializing a approximately second-century Roman sailor and soldier named the Roman individual.

Moreover, the researchers discovered, the grave marker matched the description of one listed as lost from the city museum of the Rome-area town, near where it had initially uncovered, as one of the consulting academics – the local university archaeologist Dr. Gray – stated in a column published online earlier this week.

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

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie suburb, said she thought about her ancestor’s curious relic again after the publication had received coverage from the worldwide outlets. She said she reached out to a news outlet after a conversation from her ex-husband, who informed her that he had seen a article about the item that her grandfather had once had – and that it truly was to be a artifact from one of the history’s renowned empires.

“It left us completely stunned,” she commented. “The way this unfolded is simply incredible.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a relief to learn how the ancient soldier’s headstone ended up in the yard of a house more than a great distance away from Civitavecchia.

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