Mysterious Statue Found in Trash Bag Turns Out to Be a 2,000-Year-Old Greek Artifact

Earlier this month, a man found something surprising in a black plastic trash bag sitting on the street: a statue of a woman draped in some sort of cloth, with its arms and head missing.

The artifact was found in Neoi Epivates, a suburb of Thessaloniki, Greece. Upon its discovery, the man took the statue to his local police station where experts were called in to examine it.

According to a statement provided by the Greek police, the statue is believed to be from Greece's Hellenistic period, which was the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. and the rise of Augustus in Rome in 31 B.C.E.

The authorities have turned over the statue to investigators from Greece's Cultural Heritage Protection Office. The piece will be analyzed at a forensic laboratory before it's delivered to the Ephorate of Antiquities for safekeeping and evaluation.

Bert Smith, a classical archaeologist at Oxford University, told the New York Times that the 31-inch-tall marble statue was likely made for religious purposes. "The small size is typical for such marble votives set up to divinities in sanctuaries or temples,” he says. "People prayed to divinities and made dedications to them in thanks for their favor."

Since the limbs of the statue are missing, it's difficult to pinpoint its exact identity and purpose. "The arms might tell us what the figure was doing and what attributes it may have carried," Smith told the Times.

This artifact is one of thousands found in Thessaloniki and neighboring cities in recent years. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the city's two-decade-long construction of a new subway system has lead to the discovery of over 300,00 archaeological finds from Greece's ancient history.