Classical Greek marble sculptures today appear crisp and white. But they weren’t always that way, according to a new study, which found the famous 2500-year-old Parthenon sculptures were colourful, painted with floral patterns and other elaborate designs.
By using a noninvasive imaging technique, researchers at the British Museum where nearly half of the sculptures reside and King’s College London found traces of paint on 11 out of 17 figures and from a section of frieze on show in the museum, according to a study published this week in the journal Antiquity.
Paint often does not survive on archaeological finds, particularly in cases such as the Parthenon sculptures that date back to between 447 and 438 BCE and were continuously exposed to the environment, said lead study author Dr Giovanni Verri, a conservation scientist at the Art Institute of Chicago who previously was a fellow at the British Museum.
“These are just thin paint layers at the very, very top of the surface of these objects, and so they are at the interface between everything that happens. (The paint) is the first to get the impact of the environment,” Verri said. “It’s also possible that during conservation treatments restoration treatments these small traces that looked like dirt effectively, were inadvertently removed.”
Greece has repeatedly called for the return of the sculptures that British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the imposing Parthenon temple in Athens in the early 19th century when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which then ruled Greece.
Source: Nine News
