A bronze bust of 15th century Romanian prince, Stephen the Great, has mysteriously disappeared from a local town hall.
The statue which weighed 1.5 tons had been stored in a room near the town hall in the town of Tecuci many years ago and forgotten about.
The town hall commissioned local artist Dan Mateecu for the work for which they paid 30,000 dollars in 2004, adevarul.ro reported.
It stands almost 2 meters high, Adevarul reported.
But after it was crafted, rather than go on display in the town in eastern Romania, it was stored in a disused military hall.
Stephen the Great, a prince or Voivode, ruled Moldavia from 1547 to 1504. He won dozens of battles and defeated the Ottoman Army in 1475.
Under his long reign, an important number of churches and monasteries were built by Stephen himself. Some of them, including Voroneţ, are now part of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites.
At a recent town council meeting, representatives decided to dust it off and put it up in the town center.
On Thursday, town hall employees paid a visit to the military quarters to check out the statue, Ziarul Tecucean reported.
They discovered it had vanished into thin air. There are no CCTV cameras in the area and security guards said they had no idea about its existence,
The Tecuci town hall has filed a report with police saying they suspect the statue has been stolen.
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