Weary Heracles popular in its home after repatriation

ANTALYA – Doğan News Agency

The ‘Weary Heracles’ statue has received more than 400,000 visitors since its top half was brought to the Antalya Museum from the US three years ago.

The Weary Heracles statue, the top half of a 1,800-year-old Roman sculpture of the mythological hero Heracles that was repatriated to Turkey from the Boston Museum in the United States after 30 years abroad, has now been on display at the Antalya Museum for nearly 1,000 days.
 
The statue has received more than 400,000 visitors during this period.

The top half of the Weary Heracles, which was smuggled from the ancient city of Perge in the southern province of Antalya, was attached to its other part at the Antalya Museum, after which the museum attracted 406,510 visitors.

Between October-December 2011, when the statue was first put on display, the museum was visited by 20,629 people. In 2012, the number of visitors was 173,843, and in 2013 the number was 136,587, according to information provided by the museum directorate in Antalya. In the first six months of this year, 75,451 people have visited the museum.

The lower half of the Heracles sculpture was found during excavations in the 1980s by Professor Jale İnan and the top half attracted the attention of journalist Özgen Özer at an exhibition abroad, after which the campaign to repatriate the statue began.