Last month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was in the US for the UN General Assembly, decided to bring the statue back to the country on a government plane instead of allowing it to travel on a commercial flight. “This is a very valuable piece, and it should be transported on our plane,” he said.
The statue traveled all the way from Boston to be reunited with its bottom half, which has been waiting at a museum in Antalya, a city in southern Turkey known as a favorite holiday destination for domestic and international tourists.
The two parts of the statue were reunited by experts and went on display at the Antalya Museum following a ceremony. Speaking at the event, Günay said, “Today was a special day for all people who attach importance to history and archeology.”
The lower half of the statue was found by Professor Jale İnan during excavations near Perge, Antalya province, in 1980. İnan searched extensively for the upper half of the statue, a feat that took 10 years, until she was finally able to locate it in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1990, at the age of 76.
