The Partheon Sculptures were originally coloured. Now a new technology may be able to detect more minute traces of the original pigments, enabling us to build up a clearer idea of exactly how ancient painted artefacts might ave looked originally.

From:
Nanotechnology Now

Abstract:
The fabled ivory carvings from the ancient Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — literally meaning “Stone Lion” — may appear a dull monochrome in museums today, but they glittered with brilliant blue, red, gold and other colors 2,800 years ago, a new study has confirmed after decades of speculation. It appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry.

Re-creating the original colors of treasured ivory carvings from the ancient past
Washington, DC | Posted on May 29th, 2013
Read the rest of this entry »

A temporary exhibition at the New Acropolis Museum in Athens aims to give visitors a better idea of the colours that the sculptures on the Acropolis would originally have been, rather than the pristine while marble that we see today.

From:
Acropolis Museum

Archaic Colors

Commencing Tuesday 31 July 2012 and for the next twelve months, the Acropolis Museum wants to conduct research on its unique collection of archaic statues, which retain their colors to a small or large degree, and to open a very extensive discussion with the public and various experts on color, its technical issues, its detection using new technologies, its experimental use on marble surfaces, its digital reconstruction, its meaning, as well as the archaic period’s aesthetic perception of color. So far, scientific research into the color found on ancient sculpture has made great progress and reached surprising conclusions that to a large degree refute the stereotypical assumptions regarding ancient sculpture. It turns out that color, far from being just a simple decorative element, added to the sculpture’s aesthetic quality.
Read the rest of this entry »

Despite their time on the monument (& the fact that for years, people have perceived them in their pure white form), traces of the original colouring from the sculptures on the Parthenon are still visible.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/14/2011
Traces of the Parthenon’s colourful past

(ANA-MPA) — An inset shows traces of mustard-coloured paint on the eponymous Lion’s Head pediment that was removed from the Parthenon’s northeast side on Friday 9 June 2011. The pediment was removed from atop the celebrated Classical Era ancient temple for restoration. The Parthenon was painted in bright colours during antiquity, as were most ancient temples, a far cry from the ubiquitous sun-baked and bare marble columns and friezes usually associated today with the Greco-Roman era. ANA-MPA/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU

Following on from the news that traces of original paint have been detected on the surface of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, Decoding the Heavens has written about the scientific basis behind this story in more detail.

Read the article here, along with a followup to something hinted at in the first article here.

More coverage of the news that traces of original paint have been discovered on the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Parthenon was covered in colourful paint
The Parthenon temple in Athens was once painted with splashes of colour, according to a new study.
By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:00PM BST 17 Jun 2009

New tests on the stone have found that the marble was once covered with shades of blue, while it also thought red, green and gold were used.

By shining red light onto the marble, Dr Giovanni Verri identified an ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue, used until the year 800AD.
Read the rest of this entry »

This isn’t really a particularly new discovery, as on some fragments in Athens the original patterning is still clearly visible & numerous other articles have covered it in the past.

From:
Nature

Published online 15 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.574
Traces of paint confirmed on Parthenon sculptures
Pristine white marbles were once a riot of colour.
Alison Abbott

Researchers have confirmed that the sculptures on the triangular gables of the Parthenon temple in Athens were originally brightly painted.

Conservation scientists at the British Museum in London used a non-invasive technique to reveal invisible traces of an ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue. The team says that this is the first definitive evidence that the two-metre-high sculptures were not pristine white, as they appear today, but were precisely painted — as most sculptures from antiquity once were.
Read the rest of this entry »