File:Втомлений Геракл 01.jpg

English: In 1980, excavations at Perga revealed the lower half of a statue of the "Weary Herakles" or "Farnese Hercules" type, made during the reign of Emperor Commodus. At the same time, rumors spread that something important had been stolen from the excavation site.

In 1981, what later turned out to be the upper half of the statue was purchased by the the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in a fifty percent partnership with collectors Shelby White and Leon Levy. The statue was first exhibited the following year as part of a temporary exhibition at the the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The agreement between the museum and the New York collectors was that after Leon Levy's death, the museum would receive full ownership.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of the statue was displayed in the Antalya Museum, shown in recent years in association with a photograph of the upper half of the statue. Furthermore, a collage of newspaper cuttings was displayed alongside the bottom half, describing the ongoing dispute with the Boston Museum. Debate on the return of the statue continued for thirty years. The upper half of the body was returned to Turkey only in 2011. The statue is displayed in the museum separately on a large pedestal, against a background of velvet, because it is a symbol of the diplomatic victory over the USA.

The Weary Hercules or Hercules Farnese type is represented by Roman marble and bronze copies of a Greek bronze sculpture by Lysippos of Sicyon, the court sculptor of Alexander the Great. The statue was very popular in the Roman Empire and a dozen antique copies have come down to us. The original was made in the IV century and did not reach our time. According to legend, it was 3 m tall and was located in the city of Taranto. In 325, emperor Constantine the Great moved the statue to Byzantium. In 1205, it was remelted by the Crusaders.

English: Antalya Museum. Marble statue from Perga.