How the headstone from the grave of a Roman soldier who died approximately 1,900 years ago wound up in New Orleans remains a mystery. But a curious couple who discovered it helped in advancing its return to European soil.
Ryan Gray, with the Preservation Resource Center (PRC) of New Orleans, was contacted by two New Orleans residents residing in the city's Carrollton neighborhood.
It was back in March when Daniella Santoro, an anthropologist at Tulane University, and her husband Aaron Lorenz, reached out to the University of New Orleans and the PRC and got in touch with Gray, telling him that while clearing brush out of their backyard, they uncovered an unusual flat marble slab with a carved inscription on it.
The slab, approximately a foot in height and a little more than that in length, and fearing their house had been built over a forgotten cemetery, was a mystery Santoro and Lorenz wanted solved.
Gray said he shared photographs of the carving with colleagues who were experts in Latin and Classical Studies. It was revealed that the inscription on the tombstone was for a 2nd-century Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus. Essentially, the rest of the stone explained that Verus had been with the praetorian fleet Misenensis, from the tribe of Bessi of Thrace. He served 22 years in the military serving aboard the warship Asclepius and died at age 42.
But how did the headstone get from Italy to Louisiana?
Digging deeper, the researchers discovered that the tombstone was known and had been reported missing decades before from a city museum in Civitavecchia, Italy, a coastal city north of Rome.
Gray and his fellow historical investigators agreed with the New Orleans couple that the stone had to be returned to its rightful owner. But the international repatriation of antiquities is a complex process, and a lot of things had to be done to get it home to Italian soil. This included assistance from the FBI's Art Crime Team, who assisted by storing the stone in their custody until repatriation was accomplished.
Speculation about the stone's journey from Europe to North America includes art dealers receiving it in the immediate aftermath of World War II, where Civitavecchia was bombed in Allied air raids in 1943 and 1944. Those bombings destroyed much of the museum, but somehow the Roman headstone survived.
Once it returns, Gray wrote, the museum staff in Civitavecchia hopes to hold a celebration upon its return.
Concluded Gray: "While there may not be many other 2,000-year-old Roman antiquities sitting around New Orleans backyards, there are many other mysteries and committed people who want to tell those stories."