Four marble maidens from ancient Greece have just gotten a facelift, as decades of dirt and pollution have been stripped away from the Caryatids, the iconic marble maidens that stood at the Erechtheion.
Using a specially designed laser, conservators of the Acropolis Museum have laboured since 2011 to clean four of the six statues, which stand seven and a half feet tall.
The cleaning project began after scientists at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas of Crete developed a hi-tech system to clean the sculptures. The marble maidens now look nicer than ever after their beauty treatment, which coincided with the new
Acropolis Museum fifth birthday celebration.
Sculpted in the late fifth century BC, the draped figures served as columns for the Erechtheion, one of the temples that stood on the Acropolis, the sacred hill that rises above Athens.
As Athens rapidly industrialised during the 20th century, the five figures remaining on the Acropolis suffered gravely from the effects of air pollution.
In 1979 the figures were moved to the old Acropolis Museum to protect them from further damage, and cement replicas were installed in their place on the Erechtheion’s porch.
Originally, six of the maidens, known as Caryatids, held the roof of the Erechtheion’s south porch on their heads. One was taken to London in the early 19th century and is now on display in the British Museum. Another was cleaned in 2006 and was not part of the current project.
Source: National Geographic