Vintage Roman Grave Marker Found in New Orleans Yard Deposited by US Soldier's Descendant

This historic Roman tombstone recently discovered in a lawn in New Orleans seems to have been passed down and placed there by the granddaughter of a US soldier who was deployed in Italy throughout the global conflict.

Through comments that nearly unraveled an international historical mystery, the granddaughter shared with local media outlets that her grandpa, Charles Paddock Jr, kept the ancient relic in a showcase at his home in New Orleans’ Gentilly area before his death in 1986.

O’Brien said she was not sure precisely how her grandfather acquired an object listed as lost from an Rome-area institution near Rome that lost most of its collection amid wartime air raids. But the soldier fought in Italy with the US army in that period, wed his spouse Adele there, and came home to New Orleans to pursue a career as a musical voice teacher, O’Brien recounted.

It was also not uncommon for soldiers who were in Europe throughout the global conflict to come home with mementos.

“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 the heir originally assumed was a unremarkable stone slab was eventually passed down to her after the veteran’s demise, and she set it as a lawn accent in the garden of a house she purchased in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood in 2003. O’Brien forgot to take the stone with her when she moved out in 2018 to a husband and wife who discovered the relic in March while clearing away brush.

The pair – scholar the anthropologist of Tulane University and her husband, Aaron Lorenz – recognized the artifact had an engraving in ancient Latin. They sought advice from researchers who determined the object was a headstone memorializing a circa ancient Roman seafarer and serviceman named the Roman individual.

Additionally, the researchers discovered, the tombstone fit the details of one documented as absent from the local institution of the Rome-area town, near where it had originally been found, as one of the consulting academics – UNO expert Dr. Gray – wrote in a publication shared online Monday.

The homeowners have since turned the headstone over to the authorities, and plans to return the relic to the institution are in progress so that institution can exhibit correctly it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, said she thought about her ancestor’s curious relic again after the publication had received coverage from the global press. She said she got in touch with journalists after a phone call from her former spouse, who shared that he had seen a report about the item that her ancestor had once owned – and that it truly was to be a piece from one of the world’s great classical civilizations.

“It left us completely stunned,” O’Brien said. “It’s just unbelievable how this came about.”

The archaeologist, however, said it was a satisfaction to learn how the ancient soldier’s gravestone ended up behind a house more than a great distance away from its original location.

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