Parthenon Secret #2 – Vivid Color!
Today we see the Parthenon as a gleaming white marble building, its only decoration in the sculpture and friezes that are still standing. But back in the Hellenic period when it was built, the Parthenon was bright with vibrant colors. Researchers have studied traces of paint along the west cornice. They found the Greeks used a lot of paint on their buildings, even the temples we think of as uncolored. Their work revealed traces of green paint and several types of blue, including azurite and Egyptian blue. There were two types of red found, red ochre and red lead. The study also found two blacks, two whites, and a yellow paint. Painters mixed pigment with beeswax and heated to bind the paint layers, called an encaustic technique. The Greeks loved color, and the white marble we see today is really just the base.