A woman removing overgrown brush behind her New Orleans home found something hidden beneath the ground. Underneath the brush was a large stone slab that had been concealed by years of overgrowth and neglect.
At first, the discovery seemed ordinary, but it would eventually become part of an international investigation.
Years later, investigators uncovered the stone’s history, bringing renewed attention to the discovery.
Even then, one question about the stone’s unlikely journey remained unanswered.
A Roman gravestone appears in New Orleans
Danielle Santoro, Ph.D., a Tulane University anthropologist, was clearing brush around her New Orleans home with her husband, Aaron Lorenz.
The couple was clearing overgrown areas of the property when they noticed something beneath the ground. It wasn’t what they expected to uncover in their own backyard.
As they cleared away more debris, a marble slab with what appeared to be ancient Latin writing came into view.
Danielle immediately wondered whether the property might contain an unknown burial site.
After consulting experts, they concluded they were looking at a Roman funerary monument. A Latin inscription revealed the slab was nearly 1,900 years old and connected it to ancient Rome.
Scholars believe it is the grave marker of Sextus Congenius Verus, a Roman sailor from the 2nd century AD.
When the description of the grave marker found in Louisiana matched descriptions of a missing gravestone from a museum in Civitavecchia, the investigation widened.
Civitavecchia is a coastal town located about thirty miles northwest of Rome, known for its historic port.
The match transformed an unusual backyard discovery into an international investigation.
Civitavecchia was heavily damaged during World War II. Before the museum reopened, much of the collection was lost.
Apparently, one of those missing items was the same gravestone discovered decades later beneath a Louisiana backyard.
The FBI enters the investigation
After the funerary monument was linked to a missing piece of a museum’s art collection, the federal government became involved.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Art Crime Team accepted custody of the gravestone. The team continued investigating its history while coordinating its eventual return to Italy.
Working alongside U.S. and Italian authorities, the FBI also assisted in documenting the artifact and returning the stone.
Officials later returned the gravestone to Italy during a formal presentation.
Researchers linked the gravestone to museum records and returned it to Italy.
However, they were unable to determine the exact circumstances of how it traveled from Italy to New Orleans. That unanswered question remained the central mystery even after the investigation expanded.
How did the stone ‘cross’ the Atlantic?
Researchers eventually narrowed their focus to one possible owner: Charles Paddock Jr.
Charles Paddock Jr. reportedly kept the funerary monument in a display case in his living room in New Orleans until his death in 1986.
Paddock’s granddaughter, Erin Scott O’Brien, stated she didn’t really know where Charles got the stone. She knew he had served in Italy with the U.S. Army during World War II, married there, and then moved to New Orleans.
The final piece of the mystery remains unknown
The available evidence does link the artifact to Paddock’s time in Italy during the twentieth century. Researchers were unable to provide exact details regarding when and why the stone traveled from Italy to New Orleans.
That missing chapter remains the final unanswered piece of the artifact’s journey.
The stone had survived centuries of neglect, decades in private hands, and months beneath debris and weeds in a New Orleans backyard.
After decades hidden from view, the gravestone resurfaced and revealed a journey historians still cannot fully explain.
Although the artifact has been returned to Italy, exactly how it crossed the Atlantic remains unknown.
Read the whole thing?
Get the week's signal, not the noise
Our sharpest reporting on energy, climate and nature — free, once a week.
