This handout photograph released by Greek Police on January 22, 2025, shows an ancient statue after it was "spotted by a citizen in a black plastic bag near garbage cans" on a street in Thessaloniki. Photo by Handout / GREEK POLICE / AFP
Thessaloniki: Police in Greece said Wednesday they were investigating how an ancient Greek statue came to be dumped in a black plastic bag near dustbins in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
The organised crime unit said it was investigating "after a 32-year-old man went to the police to drop off a statue he had apparently found inside a black bag near dustbins".
According to the first assessment by the archaeology service, the headless statue is from the Hellenistic period (between 323 and 31 BC), said the police statement. It measures 80 by 25 centimetres (32 by 10 inches).
It will be transferred to the crime investigation team in northern Greece for lab tests, then to the antiquities service for evaluation and conservation, the statement added.
Police have long had to contend with the illegal traffic in antiquities because of the number of artefacts in sites across the country that date back to ancient Greece.
Road and construction work across Greece still turns up new finds from that era on a regular basis.
