This secret was taken to the grave.
Archeologists believe they have finally uncovered the origins of what is believed to be the oldest gravestone in the United States — which belonged to an English knight who died nearly 400 years ago.
The tombstone, from 1627, was erected at the Jamestown settlement following the death of Sir George Yeardley, a colonial governor of Virginia.
For decades, experts have been scratching their heads trying to determine the origins of the stone.
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However, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology , the stone was not North American.
The study, titled “Sourcing the Early Colonial Knight’s Black ‘Marble’ Tombstone at Jamestown, Virginia, USA,” posits that the stone was hauled across the Atlantic.
“In seventeenth-century Virginia, USA, one of the ways affluent English colonists exhibited their wealth and memorialized themselves was with engraved tombstones,” the study states.