Vintage Roman Tombstone Found in NOLA Yard Placed by US Soldier's Granddaughter

The old Roman tombstone just uncovered in a back yard in New Orleans appears to have been inherited and placed there by the female descendant of a American serviceman who fought in Italy during the global conflict.

In statements that practically resolved an international historical mystery, Erin Scott O’Brien shared with area journalists that her grandpa, Charles Paddock Jr, kept 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 unsure exactly how the soldier ended up with an item reported missing from an museum in Italy near Rome that lost the majority of its artifacts amid World War II attacks. Yet her grandfather was stationed in Italy with the US army during the war, married his wife Adele there, and came home to New Orleans to pursue a career as a musical voice teacher, she recalled.

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

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

In any event, what O’Brien initially thought was a unremarkable stone slab turned out to be handed down to her after her grandfather’s passing, and she set it as a garden decoration in the rear area of a home she bought in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. The heir overlooked to take the stone with her when she sold the house in 2018 to a husband and wife who discovered the relic in March while clearing away brush.

The husband and wife – anthropologist the expert of the university and her husband, the co-owner – recognized the object had an writing in the Latin language. They sought advice from scholars who determined the item was a tombstone memorializing a around ancient Roman sailor and soldier named the historical figure.

Additionally, the researchers discovered, the tombstone matched the details of one listed as lost from the local institution of the Rome-area town, near where it had initially uncovered, as one of the consulting academics – University of New Orleans archaeologist Dr. Gray – explained in a publication published online earlier this week.

The couple have since surrendered the relic to the FBI’s art crime team, and efforts to return the artifact to the institution are ongoing so that institution can properly display it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie suburb, said she remembered her grandpa’s unusual artifact again after the archaeologist’s article had received coverage from the international news media. She said she reached out to local media after a phone call from her former spouse, who told her that he had come across a report about the item that her grandpa had once owned – and that it actually turned out to be a piece from one of the history’s renowned empires.

“It left us completely stunned,” the granddaughter expressed. “The way this unfolded is simply incredible.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a relief to discover how Congenius Verus’s gravestone made its way near a residence more than a great distance away from Civitavecchia.

“I assumed we would identify several possible carriers of the artifact,” the archaeologist stated. “I didn’t anticipate discovering the exact heir – making it exhilarating to uncover the truth.”