Roman Soldier's Gravestone Found in New Orleans Backyard Repatriated to Italy

A Roman funerary marker for Sextus Congenius Verus, a 42-year-old sailor who served 22 years on the ship Asclepius, was discovered in a New Orleans backyard in early 2025 by Daniella Santoro and Aaron Lorenz. The gravestone, dating to the second century C.E., had been missing from the National Archaeological Museum in Civitavecchia, Italy, for decades. Santoro consulted archaeologists D. Ryan Gray and Susann Lusnia, who identified the inscription and traced it to the museum's missing artifacts list. The stone was handed to the FBI's Art Crime Team. It was later revealed that the gravestone had been owned by Erin Scott O'Brien's grandparents, Charles and Adele Paddock, who acquired it during or after World War II. O'Brien had placed it in her garden and forgotten it. The gravestone was repatriated to Italy on April 29, 2025, alongside over 300 other artifacts, including a head of Alexander the Great, a satyr from Herculaneum, Egyptian statues, Byzantine coins, and Greek ceramics. The repatriation ceremony in Rome marked 25 years of the U.S.-Italy agreement to combat cultural artifact trafficking, renewed most recently in December 2025. The gravestone will return to the National Archaeological Museum in Civitavecchia.