"None of us knew what it was" How did the ancient gravestone end up in a New Orleans garden?
How did a 1900-year-old gravestone from ancient Rome end up across the Atlantic in an overgrown garden in the US metropolis of New Orleans? A search for clues.
12.10.2025, 22:00
12.10.2025, 22:06
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- A family has discovered an ancient gravestone in their garden in New Orleans, USA.
- As it turned out, the marble slab is a lost piece from an Italian museum.
- During the Second World War, the Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia was bombed and rebuilt over a long period of time - and the gravestone disappeared.
- The FBI has now contacted the Italian authorities to coordinate the return of the gravestone.
Daniella Santoro and her family had a big project in mind: to finally tidy up the overgrown garden behind the house they bought in 2018. But hidden under the weeds was a historical treasure they had never expected: a mysterious marble slab with an inscription they couldn't read.
The fact that the writing was apparently in Latin immediately made her suspicious, says Santoro, who is herself an anthropologist at Tulane University. "I mean, you see something like that and you're like, okay, this isn't something common."
"It sent a shiver down my spine"
Intrigued, Santoro turned to a colleague, archaeologist Susann Lusnia, who was completely blown away by the find. "When I saw the picture Daniella had sent me for the first time, it really sent a shiver down my spine," said Lusnia. The archaeologist found out that the slab was the 1900-year-old gravestone of a Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus. But where did this tombstone from antiquity come from?
Lusnia's research revealed that the gravestone had stood together with around 20 others in an ancient military cemetery in Civitavecchia, north of Rome. It was discovered there between 1860 and 1870. In 1910, the text of the gravestone was documented in a catalog with Latin inscriptions.
At the time, it was said that it was unclear where the tombstone was, but before the Second World War it reappeared in the Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia. During the war, the museum was bombed and painstakingly rebuilt - and the tombstone disappeared. Representatives of the museum confirmed that the stone slab had been missing for decades.
The sailor Sextus Congenius Verus died of unknown causes at the age of 42 after serving for more than two decades in the imperial navy on a ship named after the god of healing, Asclepius or Asclepius. On the tombstone, extus Congenius Verus was described as a person who had rendered "great service". The stone was commissioned by two "heirs". However, it is more likely that they were shipmates, as Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry at that time, said Lusnia.
The fact that the stone slab was indeed the one from the cemetery in Civitavecchia was also confirmed by earlier measurements of the original and recent measurements of the slab from the Santoros' garden. Both were 0.09 square meters in size and 2.5 centimeters thick. Lusnia said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had contacted the Italian authorities to coordinate the return of the tombstone.
Cool art object
But how did it get from the museum in Civitavecchia to New Orleans in the first place? The previous owners of the Santoros' house were able to provide the decisive clue to this question. Erin Scott O'Brien says she knew about the stone in her garden, but always thought it was just a cool art object. She and her husband had used it as a garden decoration, but then forgot about it before they sold the house. "None of us knew what it was." The news of the find came as a shock to her.
O'Brien received the gravestone from her grandparents; her grandmother was Italian and her father was stationed in Italy during the Second World War. The stone probably came to the USA through them, but many other questions remain unanswered for the time being.
Archaeologist Lusnia is delighted with the happy ending, not least for Sextus Congenius Verus, who is now being talked about so much. If there is life after death and he found out about it, then he was probably very happy, she said. "Because that's what a Roman wants - to be remembered forever."
