"A New Orleans family cleaning up their overgrown backyard made an extremely unusual find: Under the weeds was a mysterious marble tablet with Latin characters that included the phrase spirits of the dead. The fact that it was in Latin that really just gave us pause, right? said Daniella Santoro, a Tulane University anthropologist. I mean, you see something like that and you say, Okay, this is not an ordinary thing.'"
"Intrigued and slightly alarmed, Santoro reached out to her classical archaeologist colleague Susann Lusnia, who quickly realized that the slab was the 1,900-year-old grave marker of a Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus. When I first saw the image that Daniella sent me, it really did send a shiver up my spine because I was just floored, Lusnia said. Further sleuthing by Lusnia revealed the tablet had been missing from an Italian museum for decades."
"Sextus Congenius Verus had died at age 42, of unknown causes, after serving for more than two decades in the imperial navy on a ship named for the Greco-Roman god of medicine, Asclepius. The gravestone calls the sailor well deserving and was commissioned by two people described as his heirs, who were likely shipmates since Roman military could not be married at the time, Lusnia said."
A family in New Orleans uncovered a marble tablet with Latin characters referencing "spirits of the dead" while clearing an overgrown backyard. Tulane anthropologist Daniella Santoro consulted classical archaeologist Susann Lusnia, who identified the slab as a 1,900-year-old grave marker for Roman sailor Sextus Congenius Verus. Sextus died at 42 after more than two decades in the imperial navy aboard a ship named for Asclepius. The gravestone was commissioned by two heirs, likely shipmates. The tablet originated from an ancient military cemetery in Civitavecchia, had been recorded in 1910, and was later documented at the local museum before going missing for decades.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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