On a recent weekday afternoon, families approached the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier in Washington Square, posing for photographs and reading the inscriptions.
They did not seem to notice that, on the stone floor in front of the monument’s eternal flame, someone had carved a Chi Ro, an ancient Christian symbol, along with the words “Alpha” and “Omega.”
Etched next to a plaque leading up to the memorial was the phrase “Son of Man,” and similar messages had also been dug into the rim around the park’s fountain.
Liam Davis, a 48-year-old South Philadelphia resident who called the square “my favorite place on the planet,” has documented the damage and is trying to raise awareness. Davis, who uses they/them pronouns, said the symbols have been twice removed, only to reappear within weeks or months.
They first spotted the Chi Ro at the tomb in November 2024, shortly after the presidential election. Davis said they told a park volunteer group, who eventually hired a specialist to complete the repairs.
In 2025, the markings appeared again, Davis told Metro. This time, the group said it had run out of money, so they reported it to a park ranger. The square is managed by the National Park Service as part of Independence National Historical Park.
Crews completed a full restoration, fixing sections of the stone lost to erosion, according to Davis. But, a little over a month ago, the symbols came back, they added.
“This makes me very angry, and I don't know what else to do about it,” Davis said in a phone interview. “So I'm trying to get people to care so that we can stop the desecration of a public memorial.”
Davis suspects an ex-friend, who they described as a scholar obsessed with medieval Christianity, is responsible, though they have no hard evidence. The pair used to visit the tomb but had a falling out, Davis said.
NPS spokesperson John Harlan Warren, in an email to Metro, said a law enforcement report was submitted March 3, in reference to the carvings.
He said NPS is determining whether the repairs can be completed in-house or require a contracted stone conservator. The specialist can paint the damage out to match the adjacent stone or use a micro abrasive system to rub out the markings, Warren said. The NPS is “in the process of estimating the cost for repairs,” he added.
It’s not the first time the tomb has been vandalized. Notably, during the 2020 protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd, someone spraypainted “committed genocide” on the wall next to the memorial’s statue of George Washington.
Local businessmen raised money to build the monument in the 1950s, with remains exhumed from the park entombed in a marble sarcophagus. Thousands of soldiers, victims of the yellow fever epidemic and others were buried at Washington Square in the 1700s, when the area was used as a potter’s field and graveyard.
