Greek police said on Wednesday they were investigating how an ancient Greek statue was dumped in a black plastic bag near a rubbish bin in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
Organized Crime Unit said he was investigating “after a 32-year-old man went to the police to drop off a statue he apparently found in a black bag near a rubbish bin.”
According to the first assessment of 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 32-by-10-inch statue.
Greek police
It will be transferred to a crime investigation team in northern Greece for laboratory tests, then to the Antiquities Service for evaluation and conservation, the statement said.
Police have long had to contend with the illegal antiquities trade due to the numerous artifacts at sites across the country dating back to ancient Greece.
Road and construction work across Greece still regularly uncovers new discoveries from that era.
Accidental archaeological discoveries are relatively common in Greece, a country known for its ancient heritage, often occurring during the construction of buildings or public works.
In December, workers installing natural gas pipelines near Athens discovered a Roman-era statue of Hermes buried upright in a brick-lined pit near the Acropolis. A few weeks ago, Thessaloniki unveiled a treasure trove of antiquities found during the decades-long construction of its metro system, which officially opened in November.
Key finds, including a marble-paved Roman street and tens of thousands of artefacts from the Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman periods, are now on display in the subway stations.
Ancient statues have also been found in garbage before in other parts of Europe. In 2023, a statuette of Venus from the Roman era was discovered in a landfill in Rennes, France. In the same year, ancient bronze statues of ua were found garbage dump in Tuscany, Italy.
In 2013, an 1,800-year-old carved stone head possibly depicting a Roman god was found in an ancient garbage dump in England.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
