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.

Police said Wednesday that a marble statue of a woman believed to be more than 2,000 years old was found abandoned in a garbage bag near the Greek city of Thessaloniki.

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.

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.