A 2nd-century marble tombstone missing from an Italian museum since World War II was discovered in a New Orleans backyard last spring and will be repatriated to Italy following an international investigation.
Dr. Daniella Santoro and her husband were clearing six years of overgrown vines in their Riverbend-area backyard when they found the etched marble stone. “And he calls me in I hear him saying he’s like, ‘Oh, I found a really cool stone.’ Not in a million years did I think it was actually authentic,” Santoro said.
The marble bore ancient Roman abbreviations and names. Santoro, a cultural anthropology expert teaching at Tulane University, enlisted help from UNO archaeologist Dr. Ryan Gray and Tulane classical studies expert Dr. Susann Lusnia.
“That shiver in your spine and it’s just kind of like, ‘Oh my God this is, this is an actual Roman thing,'” Lusnia said.
Lusnia researched multiple databases and discovered the tombstone had been missing from a museum in Civitavecchia, Italy since the facility was bombed in 1943 during World War II. The city was known as Centumcellae in Roman times.
The marker commemorated a member of the Roman Imperial Navy from the 2nd century, approximately 100 AD. Lusnia contacted the museum and visited during summer.
“We’re pretty sure this is your inscription, and it belongs in your museum, and we don’t know how it ended up here. We’d like to see that you get it back,” Lusnia told museum workers.
The stone must be officially repatriated to Italy. Santoro handed it to the FBI art crimes unit. Gray’s article for the Preservation Resource Center has attracted national news coverage.
Santoro credited the researchers with solving the mystery. “And the internet, all of AI, all that at my fingertips, could not have located and understood and identified this object if it was not for them,” she said.
How the tombstone reached New Orleans remains unclear. Possibilities include a veteran’s souvenir, sale by impoverished Italians after the war, or black market art transactions.
The artifact remains in the United States undergoing repatriation processes. Plans call for a repatriation ceremony at the Italian museum in summer 2026.
The discovery highlights ongoing efforts to return cultural artifacts displaced during wartime to their countries of origin, particularly items looted or removed during World War II when bombing damaged or destroyed museums and cultural sites across Europe.
