Heracles to return to Turkey

 1,800-year-old Roman sculpture of the mythological hero Heracles

The top half of an 1,800-year-old Roman sculpture of the mythological hero Heracles will be returned to Turkey to rejoin the lower half of the statue which is already on display, according to The New York Times.

The statue, which has been on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, will soon be returned to Turkey, writer Zara Kessler reported in an article titled “Herakles, Weary No More.”

“[Heracles] went on display in Boston in April 1982. It is now in storage, having last been seen by museum visitors during a 2007 exhibition. In 1980, archaeologists found the bottom half of the statue in eight pieces in the city of Perge [in Antalya]. This portion is now in a museum in Antalya. No one documented the discovery of [Heracles’] top half, but archaeologists insist it was discovered around the same time and place,” the story said.

After years of discussion and disagreement, the story said the Boston Museum now expected to formalize the return of the upper half of the statue within the next year. “However, plans are already in the works for the full statue to return to Boston on short-term loan as early as 2012,” the story reported. According to the story, the return symbolizes another victory in a larger effort for the repatriation of works of antiquity that were taken from Turkey.

The story also noted that a Hittite statue had been taken to Berlin archaeologists in 1917 and never returned to Turkey. “Turkey’s culture minister, Ertuğrul Günay, had previously threatened not to renew German licenses for archaeological digs if the sphinx was not returned,” the story said.

So when are you going to give that obelix in Istanbul back to Egypt?