For $34.99 a Texas woman got an unexpected piece of ancient Roman art…

In August 2018, Laura Young was shopping in an Austin, Texas Goodwill and came upon a 52-pound marble bust.

“I was just looking for anything that looked interesting…

It was a bargain at $35, there was no reason not to buy it.”

Young told CNN that she knew she had to do some digging to see if the piece had any history to it. She contacted auction houses and experts to get any information she could on the marble structure.

Eventually, Sotheby’s confirmed that the bust was in fact Roman and they estimated it to be about 2,000 years old. A specialist was able to track down the bust on a digital database and found photos from the 1930s of the head in Aschaffenburg in Bavaria, Germany.

Lynley McAlpine, a postdoctoral curatorial fellow at SAMA, told CNN it is believed to be the bust of Sextus Pompey, a Roman military leader. His father, Pompey the Great, was once an ally of Julius Caesar.

The bust was housed in a replica of a Pompeii home, also known as Pompejanum, which was commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria.

There it was on display until World War II, which was the last time it was seen until Young bought it in 2018.

The bust, along with other artifacts in the home, had been moved into storage before the Pompejanum was bombed and destroyed during the war. At some point, the piece was stolen from storage.

It seems like sometime between when it was put into storage until about 1950, someone found it and took it.”

McAlpine said,

I would really love it if whoever donated it came forward

It’s most likely not the original person who took him, but would still like to know the story.”

The piece is currently being lent out contractually to SAMA for a year, but McAlpine explains it is still technically owned by Germany since it was looted from storage.

After May of next year, the bust will be sent back to Germany where it’ll go back on display, once again, in the Pompejanum.

(Photos, Laura Young, SAMA; via CNN)