How did a 2nd Century Roman headstone wind up in a New Orleans backyard?
Daniella Santoro, an anthropologist at Tulane University, contacted me in March. She and her husband, Aaron Lorenz, the owners of a historic home at 1106 Cambronne St. in the Carrollton neighborhood, were clearing away some undergrowth in their yard when they ran across an unusual flat marble slab with a carved inscription that appeared to be in Latin.
I sent photographs of the stone to my colleague from the University of Innsbruck, Univ.-Prof. Harald Stadler, who shared it with his brother, a Latin instructor. Meanwhile, Santoro shared photos of it with Dr. Susann S. Lusnia, Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane.
They quickly came independently to the same conclusion: not only was this a Roman funerary inscription for a sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus, but the circa 2nd century inscription had been reported before. In fact, a stone fitting that exact description was missing from the city museum in Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had originally been found!
This was a bit of a surprise, and it changed the scope of our inquiries. We agreed that getting the stone back to its rightful owner was a priority, but international repatriation of antiquities is a complex process.
With a legal path to restore the stone to its rightful owners in Italy, we came back to the question of how it ended up in a back yard in Carrollton. It had clearly been brought to the location sometime in the 20th century, perhaps after World War II, and we hoped that archival records could shed some light on who collected this unusual (and illicit) souvenir.
While we may never know exactly how Sextus Congenius Verus’ tombstone ended up in New Orleans, we do know that the item is now safe, and it is on the path to being returned to where it can be properly displayed.
The staff at Civitavecchia are excited to welcome it back, and they are hoping to throw a celebration when that happens. While there may not be many other 2,000-year-old Roman antiquities sitting around New Orleans backyards, there are many other mysteries and committed people who want to tell those stories.
https://prcno.org/how-did-a-2nd-century-...-backyard/
Daniella Santoro, an anthropologist at Tulane University, contacted me in March. She and her husband, Aaron Lorenz, the owners of a historic home at 1106 Cambronne St. in the Carrollton neighborhood, were clearing away some undergrowth in their yard when they ran across an unusual flat marble slab with a carved inscription that appeared to be in Latin.
I sent photographs of the stone to my colleague from the University of Innsbruck, Univ.-Prof. Harald Stadler, who shared it with his brother, a Latin instructor. Meanwhile, Santoro shared photos of it with Dr. Susann S. Lusnia, Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane.
They quickly came independently to the same conclusion: not only was this a Roman funerary inscription for a sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus, but the circa 2nd century inscription had been reported before. In fact, a stone fitting that exact description was missing from the city museum in Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had originally been found!
This was a bit of a surprise, and it changed the scope of our inquiries. We agreed that getting the stone back to its rightful owner was a priority, but international repatriation of antiquities is a complex process.
With a legal path to restore the stone to its rightful owners in Italy, we came back to the question of how it ended up in a back yard in Carrollton. It had clearly been brought to the location sometime in the 20th century, perhaps after World War II, and we hoped that archival records could shed some light on who collected this unusual (and illicit) souvenir.
While we may never know exactly how Sextus Congenius Verus’ tombstone ended up in New Orleans, we do know that the item is now safe, and it is on the path to being returned to where it can be properly displayed.
The staff at Civitavecchia are excited to welcome it back, and they are hoping to throw a celebration when that happens. While there may not be many other 2,000-year-old Roman antiquities sitting around New Orleans backyards, there are many other mysteries and committed people who want to tell those stories.
https://prcno.org/how-did-a-2nd-century-...-backyard/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
