NEW ORLEANS — 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."

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A family cleaning their backyard in New Orleans discovered an unusual marble tablet with some characters in Latin

Daniella Santoro turned to an archaeologist friend for help, and it turned out to be a grave marker for a 42-year-old Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus, who died 1,900 years ago

The tablet had been held at a museum in the seaside town of Civitavecchia that was destroyed during World War II

That's where the grandfather of the home's previous owner was stationed, and fell in love

"The fact that it was in Latin that really just

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