Police in Greece said Wednesday they are investigating how an ancient Greek statue came to be dumped in a black plastic bag near garbage cans in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
The organized crime unit he said he was investigating “after a 32-year-old man went to the police to find an image apparently found inside a black bag near dust bins.”
According to the first assessment by the archaeological service, the headless statue is from the Hellenistic period (between 323 and 31 BC), the police statement said. Authorities also released a photo of the statue, which is 32 by 10 inches.
Greek Police
It will be transferred to the crime investigation team in northern Greece for laboratory tests, then to the antiquities service for evaluation and conservation, the statement said.
The police have long struggled with the illegal traffic in ancient times due to the number of artifacts in sites across the country that date back to ancient Greece.
Road and construction work throughout Greece still turns up new discoveries from that time on a regular basis.
Ancient statues have been found in trash before in Europe. In 2023, there was a Roman era statue of Venus was found in a waste dump in Rennes, France. That same year, ancient bronze statues were found in a garbage dumping in Tuscany, Italy.
In 2013, an 1,800-year-old carved stone head possibly depicting a Roman god was found in old garbage can in England.
