Credit: BRITISH MUSEUM

Conservation scientists at the British Museum in London have found the first evidence of coloured pigments on sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens. The figures formed part of the decoration on the Parthenon temple, and were taken from Greece by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s.

Ancient Greeks and Romans normally painted their sculptures, and traces of the pigments tend to survive on the objects to this day. But no hints of paint had been found on the Parthenon sculptures despite detailed studies — including an analysis in the 1830s by English physicist Michael Faraday.

The researchers revealed the presence of a pigment known as Egyptian blue on the belt of the goddess Iris (pictured).They used a portable detector to beam red light onto the surface and capture the infrared light emitted by the luminescent pigment particles (inset).