An 1,800-year-old marble robed statue of a headless woman was unearthed by archaeologists in the ancient Greek city of Metropolis, ‘The City of the Mother Goddess,’ located in the Torbali region of Turkey’s Izmir province.

The robed figure standing on a pedestal is missing not just her head, but both arms, which were probably separate add-ons. “The degree of detail revealed in this superb find is remarkable,” noted an article in Ancient Origins, which added, “Metropolis was first investigated through archaeological field work starting in 1972 by Professor Recep Meriç from the Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir. The site has been excavated since 1989. In 1995, archaeologists discovered a Hellenistic marble seat of honor with griffins in the ancient theatre of Metropolis, which was an enormously important find.”

The Metropolis Excavation Site is on the west coast of Turkey, between the cities of Ephesus  – renowned its Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and Smyrna.

“According to ARTnews, it was first settled in the Neolithic period (between 10,000 BC up to 1900 BC), with later settlers arriving during the Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman eras. Metropolis is primarily a Hellenistic city, with heavy Romanized overtones, to which Byzantine elements were added later,” Ancient Origins noted.