3rd-century statue unearthed in ancient city

ANTALYA

Archeologists unearthed on July 27 a 1,700-year-old statue of a female from the Hellenistic period in the ancient city of Perge, now in Turkey’s Mediterranean Antalya province.

“First sculpture of 2020 found in Perge excavations,” Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s excavations department said on Twitter.

It shared separate photographs of the full-body statue of a dressed woman, and her broken head.

The excavations in Perge are headed by Sedef Cokay Kepçe, an archeology professor at Istanbul University, the ministry said, adding that the 3rd-century figure will be placed in the Antalya Museum once the work is complete.

The archaeological site in the ancient city has been excavated systemically by Istanbul University since 1946, and was added to the UNESCO Tentative Heritage list in 2009.

The city, according to the U.N. agency, is known for local sculptures, where women were active on an administrative level.