When a large construction project was launched on Gosposvetska Street in downtown Ljubljana in August 2017, Slovenian archaeologists in this ancient city naturally anticipated some interesting discoveries. But what they didn’t expect to find was an unusual glimpse into an early Christian community, and the important—and as yet unknown—woman its members chose to spend their afterlives close to.

The capital of this small central European country was established as the Roman settlement of Emona some 2,000 years ago, populated by thousands of colonists driven out of northern Italy by land shortages, and joined by veterans of the wars that helped to establish the Empire. From previous excavations in the area, the archaeologists knew that part of a Roman cemetery