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 northern Thessaloniki.
Organized Crime Unit said it was investigating “After a 32-year-old man went to police to drop off the statue, which he apparently found in a black bag near the bins.”
According to the first assessment of the Archaeological Service, the headless statue belongs to the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 BC), according to the police report. Authorities also released a photo of the statue, which measures 32 by 10 inches.
Greek police
It will be handed over to a crime investigation team in northern Greece for laboratory testing and then to the Antiquities Service for evaluation and preservation, the statement said.
The police have long had to fight antiquities trafficking because of the many artefacts dating back to ancient Greece in different parts of the country.
Road and construction work in Greece still regularly uncovers new finds from that period.
In Europe, ancient statues were found in the garbage before. In 2023, there was a statuette of Venus from the Roman period has been found In the landfill of Rennes, France. In the same year, ancient bronze statues were found in A dump in Tuscany, Italy.
In 2013, an 1,800-year-old carved stone head possibly depicting a Roman god ancient garbage dump In England.
