A long-lost ancient Roman artifact reappears in a New Orleans backyard

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — 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.’”