The first soccer ball from ancient times

The tombstone of a Roman boy, 113 centimetres high and 46 centimetres wide, is a world rarity and irrefutable evidence that football was played in Tilurium, a settlement within the town of Trilj, two thousand years ago. An ancient tombstone found there depicts a seven-year-old boy, Gaius Laberius, from the 2^nd century holding a ball decorated with mesh-connected hexagons, almost identical to the one football is played with today. Thanks to this, in 1969 FIFA recognised this monument as the first in the world to be dedicated to football. This tombstone whose construction was ordered by a soldier of the 7^th Roman Legion is today built into the façade of a house in Vrlička Street in Sinj.