This enormous sculpture was discovered in the mid-nineteenth century at the Temple of Apollo at Cyrene in Libya. It was excavated by the British explorers and amateur archaeologists Captain Robert Murdoch Smith and Commander Edwin A. Porcher. The statue was found broken into 121 pieces, laying near the large plinth where it originally stood. The fragments were later reassembled in the British Museum to create a relatively intact statue with only the right arm and left hand missing.