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Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that's required to see them as they were thousands of years ago.

 

Although it seems impossible to think that anything could be left to discover after thousands of years of wind, sun, sand, and art students, finding the long lost patterns on a piece of ancient Greek sculpture can be as easy as shining a lamp on it. A technique called ‘raking light' has been used to analyze art for a long time. A lamp is positioned carefully enough that the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object. When used on paintings, this makes brushstrokes, grit, and dust obvious. On statues, the effect is more subtle. Brush-strokes are impossible to see, but because different paints wear off at different rates, the stone is raised in some places – protected from erosion by its cap of paint – and lowered in others.

 

Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. UV light makes many organic compounds fluoresce. Art dealers use UV lights to check if art has been touched up, since older paints have a lot of organic compounds and modern paints have relatively little. On ancient Greek statues, tiny fragments of pigment still left on the surface glow bright, illuminating more detailed patterns.

 

Once the pattern is mapped, there is still the problem of figuring out which paint colors to use. A series of dark blues will create a very different effect than gold and pink. Even if enough pigment is left over so that the naked eye can make out a color, a few thousand years can really change a statue's complexion. There's no reason to think that color seen today would be anything like the hues the statues were originally painted.

 

There is a way around this dilemma. The colors may fade over time, but the original materials – plant and animal-derived pigments, crushed stones or shells – still look the same today as they did thousands of years ago. This can also be discovered using light.

 

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Via Chuck Sherwood, Former Senior Associate, TeleDimensions, Inc

 

Europe's first advanced civilisation was local in origin and not imported from elsewhere, a study says.

 

Analysis of DNA from ancient remains on the Greek island of Crete suggests the Minoans were indigenous Europeans, shedding new light on a debate over the provenance of this ancient culture.

 

Scholars have variously argued the Bronze Age civilisation arrived from Africa, Anatolia or the Middle East.

 

The concept of the Minoan civilisation was first developed by Sir Arthur Evans, the British archaeologist who unearthed the Bronze Age palace of Knossos on Crete.

 

Evans named the people who built these cities after the legendary King Minos who, according to tradition, ordered the construction of a labyrinth on Crete to hold the mythical half-man, half-bull creature known as the minotaur.

 

Evans was of the opinion that the real-life Bronze Age culture on Crete must have its origins elsewhere.

 

And so, he suggested that the Minoans were refugees from Egypt's Nile delta, fleeing the region's conquest by a southern king some 5,000 years ago.

 

"He was surprised to find this advanced civilisation on Crete," said co-author George Stamatoyannopoulos, from the University of Washington in Seattle, US.

 

The evidence for this idea included apparent similarities between Egyptian and Minoan art and resemblances between circular tombs built by the early inhabitants of southern Crete and those built by ancient Libyans.

 

But other archaeologists have argued for origins in Palestine, Syria, or Anatolia.

 

In this study, Prof Stamatoyannopoulos and colleagues analysed the DNA of 37 individuals buried in a cave on the Lassithi plateau in the island's east. The majority of the burials are thought to date to the middle of the Minoan period - around 3,700 years ago.

 

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Via Chuck Sherwood, Former Senior Associate, TeleDimensions, Inc