A headless, armless statue from the Hellenistic period (323 B.C.-31 B.C.) 
in Thessaloniki has been handed over to police. The statue was brought in to the police station by a 32-year-old man who claimed he had found it in a black trash bag next to some dumpsters in the Thessaloniki suburb of Neoi Epivates.
It is 31 inches high and made of marble. It depicts a female figure in a draped woolen peplos. As statues of human women from this period were typically made of terracotta and depicted wearing tighter tunics, so this was likely a representation of a goddess. Archaeologists believe it was likely a votive, an offering dedicated to a deity in their temple in gratitude for an answered prayer or to sweeten a petition.
The statue has been given to experts from Greece’s Cultural Heritage Protection Office for forensic analysis. Meanwhile investigators from various fields (crime, anti-trafficking, heritage theft), are working together to crack the case and have already questioned one man before releasing him without charge.
You know what they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, hehe.
A meeting of the ‘Thelassoniki Dental Association’ (‘DAT’):
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Q: ‘How do you like your freshly dug up marble statue?’
A: ‘OK, there’s the peplos, …but it’s maybe a bit …”featureless”!” 😉
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On a side note: There is the ‘Peplos Kore’ (with her ‘archaic smile’) and the ‘Antenor Kore’ from the ‘Perserschutt’, i.e. the persian rubble of sculptures that belonged to the Acropolis of Athens destroyed during the second Persian between 480 and 479 BC.