New test reveals Parthenon's hidden colour
New Scientist, 15 June 2009

Images of the Parthenon as a stark, white structure set against an azure
sky will have to change. Researchers have found the first evidence of
coloured paints covering its elaborate sculptures. Pigments are known to
have adorned other Greek statues and temples, but despite 200 years of
searching, archaeologists had found no trace of them on the Parthenon's
sculptures. So Giovanni Verri, a researcher at the British Museum in
London, developed an imaging technique that is ultra-sensitive to traces
of an ancient pigment called Egyptian blue. Egyptian blue has shown up
on the belt of Iris, Poseidon's messenger goddess, and as a wave pattern
along the back of Helios, god of the sun, who is shown rising out of the
sea at dawn. It also appears as stripes on the woven mantle draped over
another goddess, Dione.

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