Not the typical horse mount pad.
Wooley and Wallis
A woman in England recently discovered that she is using an ancient Roman relic as a stepping stone to mount her horse.
A bungalow owner in southern England came across the marble slab in her rock garden 20 years ago. She used it in her stable for nearly 10 years before layers of dirt and moss finally swept away enough to reveal laurel wreaths and an inscription carved into its surface, according to British auction house Woolley and Wallis, which plans to auction the slab this spring for a pre-sale estimate of £ 10,000- £ 15,000 (about $ 13,600 or AU $ 17,555 to $ 20,400 or AU $ 26,332).
Upon realizing that she was not stepping on a common garden rock, the equestrian, Woolley and Wallis says, consulted a local archaeologist who identified the marble slab as dating from the 2nd century, with probable origins in Greece or Asia Minor, the peninsula that today forms the Asian portion of Turkey. It is 63 centimeters high, with an inscription in Greek that says: “The people (and) the young people (honor) Demetrios (son) of Metrodoros (the son) of Leukios.”
“Such artifacts often arrived in England as a result of Grand Tours in the late 18th and 19th centuries, when wealthy aristocrats traveled Europe learning about classical art and culture,” said Wooley and Wallis antiques expert Will Hobbs in a communicated. “We assume that this is how it entered the UK, but what is a complete mystery is how it ended up in a domestic garden, and that is where we would like the help of the public.”
The bungalow where the valuable slab was found is located on Common Road, in the village of Whiteparish – about 160 kilometers west of London – and was one of several built in the mid-1960s. The auction house hopes that someone who lived in the area at that time or helped to build the house can present information that can shed light on the origin of construction materials.
Hobbs notes that two notable houses near Whiteparish were demolished in 1949 after being requisitioned by the army during the war. Another nearby house was destroyed in a fire in 1963, and it is possible that the rubble there was reused on construction sites in the area shortly thereafter.
The lesson? The next time you find an unassuming stone in your garden, take a closer look.