Roman sailor’s grave marker found in New Orleans goes on display in Italy

The National Archeological Museum of Civitavecchia officially reopened to the public on Thursday after a major renovation and redesign, and the repatriated funerary inscription of Roman navy soldier Sextus Congenius Verus is one of the featured artifacts. The information plaque credits Tulane University anthropologist Daniella Santoro and her husband Aaron Lorenz for the rediscovery of the slab in the backyard of their New Orleans home and its return to Italy.

The marble slab with the funerary inscription of a Roman sailor dating to the 2nd century A.D. made headlines last year when it was discovered so incongruously in the backyard of a historic shotgun house in the Carrolton neighborhood of New Orleans.

The Latin inscription translates to:

“To the spirits of the dead for Sextus Congenius Verus, soldier of the praetorian fleet Misenensis, from the tribe (natio) of the Bessi, (who) lived 42 years (and) served 22 in the military, on the trireme Asclepius. Atilius Carus and Vettius Longinus, his heirs, made (this) for him well deserving.”

The Praetorian fleet of Misenum and the trireme Asclepius were harbored and resupplied at the port of Centumcellae, the ancient name of Civitavecchia. It was a rectangular port on the Tyrrhenian sea 35 miles northwest of Rome built in 108 A.D. by Trajan’s architect Apollodorus of Damascus. It was one of the most important seaports in the western Mediterranean for hundreds of years.

Funerary inscriptions of many soldiers who served on the Misenum and Ravenna fleets have been discovered in Civitavecchia. A necropolis replete with them was unearthed during construction of a prison in 1864, the slab dedicated to Sextus Congenius Verus among them. For decades they were exhibited at the city’s National Archaeological Museum.

The ancient port (with later improvements and additions) was still in use during World War II, which made it a target for Allied bombing. The port and the museum were destroyed in bombing raids in 1943 and 1944. Sextus Congenius Verus’ inscription went missing. It was listed on an earlier inventory, but had not been seen since the museum was bombed in 1943.

After Tulane University Classics professor Susann Lusnia translated the funerary inscription and identified its origins in Civitavecchia, the slab was given to the FBI’s Art Crime Team to arrange repatriation. It was officially returned to Italy in a ceremony in Rome in April of this year. Conservators at the National Archeological Museum of Civitavecchia cleaned and prepared it for exhibition while the museum’s refurbishment project was completed.

Sextus Congenius Verus’ funerary marker is now part of a new permanent exhibition that creates a cohesive narrative of the 3,000-year-old history of Civitavecchia and its environs. Objects that have been in storage for decades are now in public view for the first time. The updated exhibition will also include new 3D models, multimedia displays and accessibility tools to make the archaeological patrimony of Civitavecchia widely accessible to visitors of all abilities.

* This article was originally published here