The Forgotten Colors of Famous Sculptures

Many sculptures from the past still exist to this day. In this post, you will find the YouTube video exploring the forgotten colors of famous sculptures and a full video transcript (with relevant sources and links).

YouTube Video

YouTube Video Transcript

Here, you will find the complete transcript of the video in the previous section with hyperlinked references/citations.

Intro

Think about the last time you went to a museum or an archaeological site. Do you remember seeing an old sculpture? If so, what color was it? Maybe it was white or gray or brown? While these colors, usually of their raw material, might be what’s left today, many sculptures were actually painted in the past. From ancient Greece to Easter Island, the past was colorful.

Hi! I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan, and I’m an archaeologist. In this video, we’re going to explore the forgotten colors of famous sculptures. So, let’s get into it.

Peplos Kore

Let’s start in ancient Greece. Often, when we see pictures of classical sculptures, they look remarkably white. However, that was not always the case. In fact, ancient Greeks colorfully painted their temples, sculptures, and more. Scholars studying classical antiquity refer to this practice as polychromy. This term has been adopted by scholars in other parts of the world too.

Research has shown that many of the works from the iconic Acropolis contain pigment. Let’s take a look at one sculpture unearthed there in 1886 – the Peplos Kore.

This sculpture dates to the Archaic period, specifically, around 530 BCE. It’s currently housed in Greece’s Acropolis Museum. Its assigned name signifies aspects of its initial interpretation. Peplos refers to a style of dress worn during the Archaic period, and Kore means a young girl or woman.

Upon its excavation, pigment on the statue was still present, especially on parts of the face, hair, and dress. Since its discovery, hundreds of casts of the sculpture have been made. There have been numerous interpretations of how the sculpture might have been colored.

For example, in the 1970s, Robert Cook and M.B. Lehrmann offered this colorful interpretation of the Peplos Kore. This version was based on the colors that were still visible at the time, watercolor drawings of the sculpture a year after it was excavated, and the desire to challenge perceptions about color in classical sculptures.

You see, the myth of white classical statues actually goes back to the Renaissance period. When artists like Michelangelo had a renewed interest in classical sculpture by the Renaissance period, the paint of many classical sculptures likely eroded away, so people might have thought that they were always white. This colorless aesthetic continued for centuries and had major impacts on our perceptions of beauty and race. So learning about the actual colors of statues helps fight against misinformed narratives that have perpetuated harmful beliefs about people in the past and present.

Starting in the 1980s, Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann carried out studies to reconstruct various classical sculptures based on scientific imaging methods, including the Peplos Kore. These imaging techniques not only revealed new information on pigments, but also stylistic patterns in the sculpture. Based on these methods, they produced two reconstructions of the Peplos Kore – Variant B and Variant C.

The findings informing these versions led to some scholars reconsidering their interpretation of the sculpture. Instead of being a young girl or woman wearing a peplos, some scholars think this is a sculpture of a Greek goddess, possibly Artemis or Athena, wearing an “ependyt” – which is a dress marking a high status.

While the Peplos Kore’s identity is still debated, this work is important. It highlights not only the array of colors that were used in the past, but how those colors might impact how we interpret the identity of a sculpture.

Venus of Willendorf

Now let’s go to Austria on August 7, 1908, 3 Paleolithic figurines were unearthed. The most famous turned out to be one initially called Venus I, now commonly known as Venus of Willendorf, which dates to about 30,000 years ago. This figurine is one of many similarly-typed sculptures that have been found in modern-day Central Europe.

Their purpose, meaning, and who they are depicting have been the center of many debates. Some popular interpretations include it being an erotic depiction, a fertility goddess, a symbol of sexuality, a ritual doll, proof of matriarchy, and more.

The term Venus is a misnomer in that there isn’t a direct connection to the Roman goddess Venus. In fact, the sculpture actually predates the Roman goddess by thousands of years. Using the term Venus is likely more metaphorical and references initial interpretations of this figurine as a fertility goddess

Now, when it comes to paint and color, if you look closely, there are remains of a red pigment in its cavities. Scholars have mentioned that the sculpture had red pigment when it was recovered, but that it was accidentally removed during the cleaning process. We haven’t found primary sources that verify this claim, and it might be tricky to do so in the future. You see, while one of the lead excavators of the project did take extensive field notes, his diary was eventually lost. Fortunately, a later scholar who excavated the site took handwritten notes of certain parts of the diary before it was lost, so those parts have been preserved. There is also debate on how the find was documented upon discovery. So if you have any information on primary sources detailing this initial cleaning, let us know in the comments.

Anyway, the red pigment on this sculpture is thought to be red ochre. Broadly speaking, ochre describes naturally occurring pigments that usually contain iron. It can come in various colors, including red, yellow, and white. Red ochre is found throughout the world and time. Red ochre was also recovered from what might be the same excavation layer as Venus of Willendorf.

We see the use of red ochre as a paint in Europe during the Paleolithic. While we still have a lot of questions surrounding the Venus of Willendorf, it is one of the earliest examples we have of pigments on a sculpture.

Moai Sculptures

Now let’s go to Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. I often associate Easter Island with the famous Moai sculptures, and I don’t think I am alone in that. They are often shown with their heads, but they usually have a full body. These are large sculptures, averaging around 13 feet in height to about 10 metric tons in weight. There are over 1000 known complete Moai, but we’re not sure of the actual overall number because many are still buried. They seem to have been constructed throughout the 10th to the 16th centuries CE.

When it comes to color, most of the sculptures now look greyish-brown. There are some Moai that have a pukao, which has been interpreted as a topknot or hat. These pukao are made from a red-colored volcanic rock. There are examples from around the world that indicate that people may have sought certain raw materials for their inherent color qualities.

Now, many scholars have noted the importance of red and its connection to sacredness across Polynesia. When it comes to the archaeology of red on Easter Island, a recent paper studying microscopic archaeobotanical remains revealed aspects of the island’s pigment production process, specifically of red ochre, which was used in a variety of contexts. The indigenous Rapa Nui people have a legacy of using natural pigments as body paint, which is still done to this day.

When it comes to the Moai, scholars think that some of these sculptures were likely painted. For those that were buried, the paint likely eroded when the sculpture was interred.

In 1868, a Moai sculpture, known as Hoa Hakananai’a was taken off the island and eventually shipped to the British Museum, where it still remains on display, though there have been frequent calls for its repatriation. There were a few British people at the time of its transport who wrote that the sculpture was colored with red and white paint, but that these colors were washed off during transit.

The issue here is that these people were not present when the sculpture was initially removed, and this has led to scholarly debate. Some scholars think there was pigment on this statue based on these accounts, while others question the validity of these historical sources. For example, Van Tillburg, noted that some of these historical figures were known to repeat hearsay. It seems that the people who participated in the actual removal of the statue didn’t make a note of any pigment. Van Tillburg thinks that any heavy white paint usage was done after removal in order to highlight designs for photographs.

So when it comes to Hoa Hakananai’a, the jury is still deliberating on whether it had paint when it was removed and the nature of the paint. But you might be thinking, “Were there other Moai sculptures with paint on them?”

That’s a good question. The short answer is yes. For example, several scholars collaborated on analyzing 3 Moai that still had paint visible to the naked eye. These Moai were all made of different rock materials, and they all seemed to be relatively late in construction. They all had some type of white pigment, and one had red pigment.

So there have been Moai found with pigment; however, the extent and nature of painting Moai is still something we’re to figure out.

Piedra del Sol

Now let’s go to Mexico. The Piedra del Sol, also known as the Sun Stone in English, is a sculpture that was originally thought to be an Aztec calendar. However, scholars have noted that its use and meaning are more likely symbolic conceptualizations of time as opposed to what we might traditionally think of as a functional numerical calendar. Its symbolic nature persists to this day, and it’s one of the most recognizable sculptures of the Americas.

The Sun Stone is currently housed in Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum. If you were to visit it today, you would observe its earthen tones, and you probably wouldn’t see any traces of paint. However, this sculpture was painted in the past.

In the early to mid-20th century, some people offered their interpretations of what the Sun Stone might have looked like. For example, in 1942, Roberto Sieck Flandes, published this colorful reconstruction of the Sun Stone. Flandes, along with his early to mid-20th-century counterparts, based their reconstructions on what they had observed in codices that contained similar motifs, not the actual sculpture itself. To be fair, much original paint had eroded away by the time it was unearthed in 1790 after being intentionally buried by Spanish colonizers in the 1500s.

In 2000, Felipe Solís Olguin published the color findings of a conservation team led by María del Carmen Castro Barrera. They were tasked with cleaning the Sun Stone and detected some remnants of pigments. While we had a hard time accessing this publication, we did learn some things from people who referenced their work. In a journal article by Leonardo López Luján and Giacomo Chiari, they mentioned that only traces of red pigment and an ochre of some sort were actually found. There were areas without any traces of pigment, but Solís Olguin and the conservators think that blue, white, and/or black pigments could have been used in these spaces.

Their proposed reconstruction was re-published in a monograph by David Stuart. The colors focus on reds and yellows. This reconstruction seems to have influenced the interpretation of the Sun Stone that is offered at Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum.

So while the Sun Stone’s color palette likely wasn’t as extensive as popular reconstructions, colors were an important part of the sculpture.

Terracotta Army

Now let’s go to China. In 1974, local farmers unearthed broken pieces of a sculpture when digging a well. Archaeologists were brought in and after a year of digging, they unearthed a large pit that held numerous sculptures of people and horses. These finds, along with others found in subsequent excavations, would come to be known as the Terracotta Army.

The Terracotta Army is thought to be part of the tomb of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuang. He died in 210 BCE. While the exact number of these sculptures is unknown, as more continue to be unearthed, there are over 8000 known sculptures that have been found so far.

While most of the sculptures now look gray or in some areas, reddish, these sculptures were previously colorfully painted. When the sculptures were first excavated, paint from the statues peeled off pretty quickly. Therefore, scientific techniques were developed and applied to better preserve statues. According to a piece interviewing a member of the Terracotta Warriors’ conservation team, “…each painted Terracotta Warrior must go through X-ray detection, ultrasonic scanning, 3D images acquisition and other procedures..”

When it comes to the colors, there was a wide range. For skin, various flesh-toned colors ranging from light to dark were found. When it comes to clothing, various contrasting colors have been revealed. For example, this reconstruction shows the uses of reds and greens.

The pigments that have been found so far are expensive and high-quality ones like malachite and cinnabar, which points to the overall opulence of these sculptures, even down to the paint.

When it comes to the choice of colors, some scholars argue that the use of these paints were to help create a realistic depiction of warriors and people of this time. If this is true, there is a lot we can learn about what people looked like, their textiles, and how they viewed color in this region over 2000 years ago. While there is still a lot to learn about the Terracotta Army, color and paint are a crucial part of its story.

Outro

Uncovering the colors of past sculptures helps us better understand the ways we think about art, beauty, and identity. Reconstructions, especially those informed by scientific analyses, help us imagine what these sculptures might have looked like in the past. From Paleolithic Europe to Aztec Mexico, color was present and important.

Now, learning about color has helped us better understand other parts of the archaeological record, like textiles. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, check out the video here. That’s all for this video, and we’ll catch you in the next one. Bye!

Additional Resources

There were many interesting YouTube videos that I came across as we researched this video and I wanted to share some of them with you:

Credits

Noor Hanania: Lead Video Editor

Brooke Norton: Peer Reviewer

Sneh P. Patel: Peer Reviewer

Smiti Nathan: Director, Co-Producer, Support Video Editor, Researcher, Scriptwriter

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Thank you to our paid Patreon members for supporting the creation of this video:

Nancy Fulton, James D., Giancarlo Annese, Thomas Martin

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