Greece: 2,000-year-old statue found abandoned in trash bag

THESSALONIKI, Greece — A marble statue of a woman more than 2,000 years old was found abandoned in a trash bag near the Greek city of Thessaloniki, police said Wednesday.

A resident discovered the 80-centimeter (31-inch) headless statue next to a trash bin in Neoi Epivates, outside Greece’s second-largest city. The man handed it over to local authorities, who contacted archaeologists to assess its significance.

Police said experts, after an initial assessment, determined that the piece dates from the Hellenistic era, a period between 320 and 30 BC. BC which was marked by a flourishing of art and culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The statue was sent for further examination by archaeologists. It will eventually be handed over to the local antiquities authority for preservation and study. Police launched an investigation into who threw the statue and briefly detained a man for questioning, who was later released without charge. Accidental archaeological discoveries are relatively common in Greece, a country renowned for its ancient heritage, and are often made during construction or public works. In December, workers installing gas pipelines near Athens discovered a Roman-era statue of Hermes buried upright in a brick-lined pit near the Acropolis. Thessaloniki unveiled a trove of antiquities found during the decades-long construction of its metro system a few weeks ago, which officially opened in November. Key discoveries, including a marble-paved Roman thoroughfare and tens of thousands of objects dating from the Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman periods, are now on display at metro stations.