On the evening of January 18, a 32-year-old Greek man went to the police with something unusual that he said he found in a plastic bag among garbage bins near the northern city of Thessaloniki.
It was a headless and armless statue depicting a female figure in a flowing dress.
Police Announced on Wednesday The statue is believed to date back to the Hellenistic period, after the death of Alexander the Great, from 323 BC to around 31 BC.
The discovery has sparked an investigation between Greek Crime, Trafficking, Antiquities and Heritage Protection units into its origins and how it could have ended up in rubbish.
Discovering ancient artifacts in surprising places is not uncommon in a country as rich in history and archaeology as Greece. The ruins are often discovered during construction projects, such as those dedicated to preparing for the 2004 Olympic Games and excavations of the subway system.
“This is not the first time” that civilians have delivered statues to police stations, Vassilis Tempelis, a spokesman for the Culture Ministry, said in an email on Wednesday.
Police said that the Ministry of Culture completed a preliminary examination of the statue and concluded that it falls within Greek laws that protect antiquities. A three-person committee will try to do this Determine its formation and history.
The Associated Press said The statue is approximately 31 inches high.
Bert SmithA professor of classical archeology at Oxford University and Bilkent University in Turkey said the statue looked like a small-sized figure of a goddess.
“The small size is typical of such marble votives erected to deities in sanctuaries or temples,” he said in an email, basing his remarks on official photos of the statue.
“People would pray to the gods and give thanks for their favor,” Dr. Smith said. “Small figurines, like this one, would be an expensive gift for an ordinary person.”
The figure’s clothing, which depicts a one-piece garment of heavy wool, is called a peplos By archaeologists, it was the common outfit of the gods. But the statue’s arms and head were lost in the past.
“The arms might tell us what the person was doing and what traits they might have had,” he said. And the head? “It was discarded by the arms in the long subsequent history of the character.”