Ever since the Parthenon sculptures first went on show
in the British Museum at the beginning of 1817
there's been this fascination
this quest to discover its ancient colour
But it's kept its secret for nearly two hundred years now
The travellers who in the Enlightenment went to Athens
were able to see more even than we see today
of the evidence for painting the architecture
And naturally they speculated that the sculpture
that was framed by the architecture was painted too
But from that time until now
there hasn't been a single scrap of evidence to prove
that the sculpture from the Parthenon in the British Museum
were coloured
Of course what archaeologist want to do is to make discoveries
and in the British Museum so deep are the collections
that there are always the possibility for those eureka moments
I was doing regular imaging and I was using a particular kind of light
There was something which was glowing
which was beyond the levels I was expecting
for that specific case
And so I realised that was luminescence from Egyptian blue
so it was possible to use those lights to excite
this glow in the dark effect
Egyptian blue was widely used across the Mediterranean
So the Greeks used it, the Romans used it
and the Egyptian used it
It's a pigment which has a very special property
It absorbs visible radiation
and it re-emits infrared radiation
And the images will show Egyptian blue as glowing white
On this head there are traces of polygramy or paint
on the cheek and the sides of the eyes
We cannot see all the pigments
that were originally present on the sculpture
with the naked eye
But we could use this methodology
which is capable of identifying Egyptian blue
even if it's present only in very minute traces
The same technique which we used on
this unidentified head from the temple of Artemis in Ephesus
was used to reveal the presence
of Egyptian blue on the Parthenon sculptures
I think there is a collective conspiracy in each generation
to forget that ancient sculpture was painted
We forget it because the Renaissance forgot it
When they found sculpture in excavations in Rome
where paint had faded and contemporary sculptors
chose to carve marble without paint
Ours is a culture that still shares
the arts and craft movement aesthetic of truth to materials
we can't bare the thought that one takes
marble and polishes it to a sheen
and then obscures its white pure surface with coloured paint
But that is what was done in Antiquity
We find colour on the backs of some of the sculptures
which is curious considering they would never have been seen
once they were placed in position on the bottom shelf of the pediment
but then it's also curious that the sculptures
were carved on their backs when the wouldn't be seen
A not impossible explanation is that the sculptures
like the building were a great votive offering to deity
and by representing the gods and the worshipers
there was an act of religious communion with them
So one could say that out of reverence for the gods
colour was added to the finish
where perhaps it wasn't to be seen
There is a reference in Plutarch to Pericles
taking the visitors while the great works were being undertaken
and showing them the carvers in the workshops
and I think we can imagine a privilege viewing of the sculptures
before they went up onto the building
never to be seen at such close quarters again
until Lord Elgin removed them
and turned them back into a privileged viewpoint
Iris the goddess of the rainbow and of the upper air
is touching down from flight
her tunic presses itself flat against her belly and her breast
and flutters out at the edge
and is contained by a belt above the waist
a belt which now, only now we understand is blue
I confess that after long years of looking and not finding
I began to doubt that the sculptures were painted at all
then suddenly there is the belt of Iris glowing away
full of Egyptian blue
and everything changes