What happened?
A New Orleans couple made a shocking archaeological discovery while gardening this year — a 2,000-year-old Roman marble tablet buried in their backyard.
Daniella Santoro, an anthropologist at Tulane University, and her husband Aaron Lorenz stumbled upon the stone while clearing undergrowth at their historic Carrollton home. The tablet, etched in Latin, turned out to be a funerary artifact dedicated to Sextus Congenius Verus, a Roman sailor who served in the Praetorian Fleet of Misenum.
How did it get there?
Experts traced the relic to a museum in Civitavecchia, Italy — about 35 miles north of Rome — where it went missing during World War II after Allied bombings. The FBI’s Art Crime Team and Italian authorities have since confirmed the artifact’s authenticity.
The mystery deepened when former homeowner Erin Scott O’Brien came forward. She revealed that her grandfather, Charles Paddock Jr., served in Italy during the war and likely brought the relic back to the U.S. as a keepsake. The stone was displayed in his New Orleans home before eventually being placed in O’Brien’s backyard garden in 2004 — where it remained forgotten for nearly two decades.
Why it matters
The discovery has sparked an international repatriation effort between U.S. and Italian officials. The gravestone is now in FBI custody and will soon return to Civitavecchia.
“For me, this story reflects a wonderful intersection of a homeowner’s curiosity ultimately bringing to light something unexpected and historically significant,” said archaeologist D. Ryan Gray of the University of New Orleans.
O’Brien, who unwittingly held onto a priceless artifact, said she’s thrilled to see it return home:
“It’s wonderful that it’s going back to where it belongs.”
