On January 18, a man walked into a police station in northern Greece with a black plastic bag he'd just found among garbage bins in the beachside town of Neoi Epivates — and inside was a 2,000-year-old statue that had been inexplicably thrown away.

Authorities say the statue dates back to the Hellenistic period and are investigating how it ended up among garbage. It was worse for wear — no head and no arms.

On the evening of Jan. 18, a 32-year-old Greek man went to the police with an unusual object that he said he had 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 a flowing, draped garment.

Ancient statues have also been found in trash before in other parts of Europe. In 2023, a Roman-era statuette of Venus was discovered in a trash dump in Rennes, France. That same year, ancient bronze statues were found in a garbage dump in Tuscany, Italy.

Police in Greece say a marble statue of a woman believed to be more than 2,000 years old has been found abandoned in a garbage bag and handed to archaeologists.

A headless statue believed to be 2,000 years old has been found inside a black plastic bag near trash cans in Greece, prompting a police investigation. A 32-year-old local found the statue on Jan.