Vintage Roman Grave Marker Found in New Orleans Backyard Left by US Soldier's Descendant

This historic Roman tombstone recently discovered in a garden in New Orleans seems to have been received and abandoned there by the granddaughter of a military man who was deployed in Italy throughout the global conflict.

In statements that all but solved an international historical mystery, the granddaughter shared with area journalists that her grandfather, Charles Paddock Jr, kept the historic item in a display case at his dwelling in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood before his death in 1986.

The granddaughter recounted she was uncertain exactly how the soldier acquired something documented as absent from an museum in Italy near Rome that lost most of its collection during World War II attacks. Yet the soldier fought in Italy with the American military throughout the conflict, married his wife Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a singing instructor, O’Brien recounted.

It happened regularly for soldiers who served in Europe throughout the global conflict to return with mementos.

“I assumed it was simply a decorative piece,” O’Brien said. “I didn’t realize it was an ancient … artifact.”

Regardless, what O’Brien initially thought was a nondescript marble piece was eventually passed down to her after Paddock’s death, and she put it as a lawn accent in the rear area of a residence she purchased in the city’s Carrollton area in 2003. The heir overlooked to take the stone with her when she sold the property in 2018 to a husband and wife who uncovered the stone in March while cleaning up overgrowth.

The couple – scholar the anthropologist of the academic institution and her husband, the co-owner – understood the item had an inscription in the Latin language. They consulted scholars who determined the artifact was a tombstone memorializing a circa second-century Roman sailor and soldier named the historical figure.

Furthermore, the group found out, the tombstone corresponded to the description of one documented as absent from the local institution of the Italian city, near where it had initially uncovered, as a participating scholar – University of New Orleans archaeologist the archaeologist – stated in a article published online recently.

Santoro and Lorenz have since turned the headstone over to the FBI’s art crime team, and efforts to send back the item to the Civitavecchia museum are under way so that museum can exhibit correctly it.

The granddaughter, living in the New Orleans area of Metairie suburb, said she recalled her ancestor’s curious relic again after the publication had gained attention from the international news media. She said she contacted a news outlet after a conversation from her ex-husband, who told her that he had seen a report about the artifact that her grandpa had once owned – and that it actually turned out to be a artifact from one of the world’s great classical civilizations.

“It left us completely stunned,” she commented. “It’s astonishing how this all happened.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a relief to learn how the ancient soldier’s tombstone made its way in the yard of a home more than thousands of miles away from Civitavecchia.

“I was really thinking we’d have our list of possible people through whom it could have ended up here,” Dr. Gray commented. “I never imagined we would locate the precise individual – thus, it’s thrilling to learn the full story.”