On the evening of January 18, a 32-year-old Greek man went to police with an unusual item he said he found in a plastic bag among trash bins near the northern city of Thessaloniki. .
It was a headless, armless statue depicting a female form in flowing, draped clothing.
Police said Wednesday that the statue dates from the Hellenistic period, after the death of Alexander the Great, from 323 BC to around 31 BC.
The discovery prompted an investigation by Greece’s Crime, Trafficking, Antiquities and Heritage Protection Units into its origins and how it might have ended up in the trash.
The discovery of ancient objects in surprising places is not uncommon in a country as rich in history and archeology as Greece. Relics are often discovered during construction projects, such as those preparatory to the 2004 Olympics and subway excavations.
“This is not the first time” that civilians have handed over statues to police stations, Culture Ministry spokesperson Vasilis Tempelis said in an email Wednesday.
The Culture Ministry completed a preliminary examination of the statue and concluded that it fell under Greek laws protecting antiquities, police said. A panel of three people will try to determine its composition and dating.
The AP said the statue is about 31 inches tall.
Dr Bert Smith, a professor of classical archeology at Oxford and Bilkent universities in Turkey, said the statue appeared to be a small-scale figure of a goddess.
“The small size is typical of these marble votives installed on deities in shrines or temples,” he said in an email, basing his observations on official photographs of the statue.
“People prayed to the deities and made dedications to them in gratitude for their favor,” Dr. Smith said. “Small statues, like this, would be an expensive dedication from a private individual.”
The character’s clothing, representing a one-piece garment of thick wool, is called peplos. by archaeologists, and was the common clothing of the deities. But the arms and head of the statue were lost in the past.
“The weapons could tell us what the figure was doing and what attributes it might be wearing,” he said. And the head? “He was knocked down with the arms during the character’s later long history.”
