# The Weary Herakles > Roman copyist after Lysippos of Sikyon - AD 170-192 (late Antonine) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/roman-copyist-after-lysippos/weary-herakles-perge/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-11 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Roman copyist after Lysippos of Sikyon - **Date:** AD 170-192 (late Antonine) - **Medium:** Marble - **Dimensions:** Not published in the sources consulted; the statue is under life size and survives in two joining halves - **Object type:** Antiquity - **Period:** Roman imperial, Pamphylia - **Current location:** Antalya Museum, Antalya (museum closed and under reconstruction; holdings moved to temporary on-site storage) - **Attribution:** workshop ## Summary A Roman marble of the Weary Herakles type, carved between AD 170 and 192, that spent thirty years in two pieces on two continents. The lower half was excavated at Perge in southern Turkey in 1980 by Jale Inan, the first Turkish woman to lead excavations, who had been hearing rumours that something important had been stolen from the site. The upper half surfaced in the United States the following year and was bought in 1981 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in a fifty-fifty partnership with the New York collectors Leon Levy and Shelby White, on terms that gave the museum full ownership when Levy died.The two halves fit. That has been demonstrable since 1992, when a plaster cast of the legs was flown from Antalya to Boston after two earlier attempts had failed. The museum did not accept the conclusion. Its argument was that the Weary Herakles was a common type, that the break might be ancient, and that the top could therefore have left Anatolia long before any Turkish law forbade it. Its head of public relations said in 1994 that the museum did not acknowledge Turkey's claim to ownership and that there had never been any evidence that the statue was stolen.No case was ever filed. What moved the object was not a court but a change in Turkish policy - from 2010 Turkey withheld loans from institutions holding contested objects, and in May 2011 Germany's Pergamon Museum returned a Hittite sphinx after Turkey threatened the excavation permits of German archaeologists - and the death of a co-owner, which left the museum free to negotiate without a donor in the room. The MFA announced the transfer on 23 September 2011, as part of a broader cultural cooperation agreement. The statue was made whole in Antalya. Jale Inan had died in 2001. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **AD 170-192** Carved in a Roman workshop for a setting at or near Perge in Pamphylia `[documented]` (origin) A late Antonine copy of the Weary Herakles type derived from a fourth-century BC original attributed to Lysippos. Perge's public buildings were filled with sculpture of exactly this date and class; the statues from its baths and gates fill several halls of the Antalya Museum. The specific building this figure stood in is not recorded in the sources consulted. - **-1980** Buried at Perge `[unknown]` (gap) Nothing is recorded of the statue between antiquity and 1980. The two halves were separated at some point; whether the break is ancient or modern became the central contested question in the dispute, because an ancient break would allow the upper half to have left Anatolia at any time in the last five centuries. - **1980-present** Republic of Turkey; the lower half, excavated at Perge and held at the Antalya Museum `[documented]` (excavation) Jale Inan, director of the Perge excavations, uncovered the lower half in 1980. She had heard rumours at the dig that something important had been stolen from the site, and suspicion at the time fell on a workman; nobody yet knew that the missing part was the upper torso of the statue she had just found. The lower half has been in the Antalya Museum ever since. - **c. 1980-1981** Removed from Turkey; route and intermediaries unrecorded `[disputed]` (looting and export) The upper half surfaced in the United States in 1981. It was bought from a German dealer, unnamed in the sources consulted. No documentation of its removal from Turkey has ever been produced by any party, which is the void that the whole dispute was conducted in. - **1981-2003** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in fifty per cent partnership with Leon Levy and Shelby White, New York `[documented]` (purchase) The agreement provided that the museum would take full ownership on the death of Leon Levy. The upper half was exhibited the following year in a temporary exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Note a discrepancy in the sources: the acquisition is given as 1981 in most accounts, including the museum's own chronology as reported, and as 1982 in others. The price has never been published. - **1992-2011** Subject of a Turkish restitution claim; possession unchanged `[documented]` (claim) A plaster cast of the lower half was flown from Antalya to Boston in 1992, after two earlier attempts using casts had failed, and satisfied the observers present - including Turkish officials and Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum - that the halves belonged to one statue. The museum did not accept that this settled ownership. No lawsuit was ever filed by Turkey. - **2003-2011** Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, sole owner `[documented]` (consolidation of title) Leon Levy died in 2003 and by 2004 the museum held the upper half outright, at which point it reopened discussions with the Turkish government. Reporting at the time noted that negotiations were easier once a donor no longer had to be involved. The upper half was put into storage in 2007 and was not on display when the agreement was made. - **23 September 2011-present** Republic of Turkey; Antalya Museum `[documented]` (negotiated transfer) The Museum of Fine Arts announced an agreement with the Turkish Republic for the transfer of the top half. The return formed part of a broader cultural cooperation agreement, and it was reported at the time that the reunited statue would go back to Boston on a short-term loan. The two halves were reunited at the Antalya Museum, where photographs show the join running across the hips. - **July 2025-present** Republic of Turkey; in temporary on-site storage during the demolition and rebuilding of the Antalya Museum `[documented]` (removal from display) The Antalya Museum closed in July 2025 and its holdings were moved to temporary storage on the site. Demolition began in September 2025 after public and academic objections, and the site was still under reconstruction in May 2026. No statement specific to this statue has been located, so its exact present location within that process is not asserted here. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - Neither half of this statue has ever been offered at public auction and there is no hammer price for it. The upper half was acquired in 1981 by private purchase from a German dealer, jointly by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the collectors Leon Levy and Shelby White; no figure has been published by any party, and none of the accounts consulted names the dealer. A record of this object that quotes a value is quoting a guess. ## Open questions - Is the break ancient or modern? The museum argued for centuries; Turkey argued for 1980. The fit was proved in 1992; the date of the fracture never was, and no independent examination of the break surfaces has been published. - Who removed the upper half from Perge, and how did it reach Europe? No route, no intermediary and no export document has ever been produced. The German dealer who sold it in 1981 is not named in any source consulted. - What did the Museum of Fine Arts and the Levy-White partnership pay in 1981? No price has been published by any party. - Did the reunited statue ever travel to Boston on the short-term loan reported in 2011? No account of such a loan taking place has been located. - What are the statue's dimensions, and where in Perge was the lower half found? Neither is given in the sources consulted, which is a striking gap for an object this well known. - What does the Greek inscription on the plinth say? It is legible in photographs and no transcription has been located. - Where is the statue now? The Antalya Museum closed in July 2025 and was demolished from September 2025; the holdings went into temporary on-site storage, and nothing specific to this object has been published. - Was the acquisition made in 1981 or 1982? Accounts differ, including within a single BBC report. ## Sources - [1] Suzie Thomas, 'Weary Herakles', Trafficking Culture encyclopedia, University of Glasgow, last modified 31 December 2012. The fullest single account: the AD 170-192 date, the 1980 excavation and the rumours of theft, the 1981 acquisition in fifty per cent partnership with White and Levy, the terms of full ownership on Levy's death, the three cast tests and the successful 1992 test, Cornelius Vermeule's argument from the abundance of the type, the 1994 statement of Robert P. Mitchell as quoted by Rose and Acar in Archaeology (1995), the Antalya display with newspaper cuttings, the 2004 reopening of talks and the 2011 agreement, and the bibliography including Akca and colleagues on the 3D modelling. - [2] BBC News, 'Weary Herakles bust to be returned by US to Turkey', 22 July 2011. Source for the purchase from a German dealer, the 2007 move into storage, the museum's position that the piece could have been found at any time since the Italian Renaissance, Katherine Getchell's statement about evidence presented in the previous couple of years, the expected short-term loan back to Boston, the Pergamon Museum sphinx and the statement of culture minister Ertugrul Gunay. Note that this report gives 1982 in its opening line and 1981 in the body. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Jale Inan'. TERTIARY, used for her dates (1 February 1914 to 26 February 2001), her training in Berlin under Gerhart Rodenwaldt, the 1946 foundation of the chair of classical archaeology at Istanbul University, the 1980 discovery of the lower half at Perga, and her 1990 identification of the Sebasteion at Bubon. To be replaced with Stephanie Muller's biographical study of 1913 and with Inan's own Boubon Sebasteionu ve heykelleri uzerine son arastirmalar (1994). - [4] Wikipedia, 'Antalya Museum'. TERTIARY, used for the museum's closure in July 2025, the transfer of holdings to temporary on-site storage, the 2020 seismic analysis, the demolition from September 2025, the objections raised by academics and professional bodies, the 1964 architectural competition, the twenty thousand square metre and sixty-five million dollar replacement, and the statuary halls of material from Perge. To be replaced with a statement from the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. - [5] Jason Felch, 'Scoop: Turkey asks Getty, Met, Cleveland and Dumbarton Oaks to Return Dozens of Antiquities', Chasing Aphrodite, 30 March 2012. Source for the 1981 joint purchase with Levy and White, the statement that the fit has been known since 1992, the characterisation of the September 2011 return as part of a broader cultural cooperation agreement, and Turkey's 2010 policy of barring loans to institutions holding contested objects. - [6] Wikimedia Commons file page for the lead plate, 'Statue of Hercules from Perge, reproduced in the late 2nd century AD from the 4th century BC original by Lysippos, Antalya Museum, Turkey.jpg', photograph by Carole Raddato, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 and Flickr-reviewed on 11 March 2021. Used for the licence and the attribution, and read in the raw wikitext rather than through the API summary. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. 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