The painted statues of Ancient Greece, hidden in a pit on the Acropolis

Did you know painted statues were the norm in the ancient world? I think most people do nowadays, but it wasn’t always the case — it certainly wasn’t during the Renaissance. 

Yep. Those wonderful ancient sculptures, painstakingly chiseled of marble, their pure, clean white gleaming in the afternoon sun…originally, they were painted. In many cases, these painted statues were decorated in what we’d consider to be incredibly tacky colors. 

Damaged, Dismantled, Destroyed

Now, before we get to the specifics of this piece from the hidden cache of painted statues, we have to talk about where it came from. I promise, it won’t be boring. Well, I’ll try not to make it boring, anyway. I retract my promise.

We now know of the Acropolis as where the Parthenon sits, on a high plateau above Athens. It towers over the city, surrounded by sheer cliffs. But once upon a time, before that structure, there were others up there. In fact, the only reason the Parthenon was built was because the Persians trashed the Acropolis, much like Genghis Khan totally ravaged Oshman’s Sporting Goods. 

The year was 480 BCE — a little before the time of figures like Sophocles and Pericles and Socrates Johnson. 

The Ancient Greeks are entangled in a brutal war with the Persians. You know, the guys from the “300” movie. The dude who got kicked in the well — he was Persian. That was the Battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartans suffered a passionate loss, and was in also in 480 BCE. After the Persians won, they had a clear path to Athens. 

They raze a couple of major cities on their way. The Athenians pile in ships and flee…but not everyone. 

Let’s turn to our good friend, the occasional exaggerator Herodotus, known as the “father of history.” The Persians had entered the mostly-abandoned Athens, and were burning it to the ground. Herodotus was four years old at the time. No, he wasn’t there. Not that I know of, anyway. It’d be weird if he was.

”When they took the town it was deserted, but in the sacred precinct they found a few Athenians, stewards of the sacred precinct and poor people, who defended themselves against the assault by fencing the Acropolis with doors and logs.”

He goes on to say that some of these people believed a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi: that the “wooden wall” would be impregnable.

The Persians set up shop on a nearby hill, and start blasting the wall with flaming arrows wrapped in tar. The Athenians roll boulders at anyone who comes close, but some Persians bypass the gate by climbing the cliffs.

”When the Athenians saw that they had ascended to the Acropolis, some threw themselves off the wall and were killed, and others fled into the chamber. The Persians who had come up first turned to the gates, opened them, and murdered the suppliants. When they had levelled everything, they plundered the sacred precinct and set fire to the entire Acropolis.”

Yeah. It’s nuts. Why hasn’t anyone made a movie about this?

Painted Ladies

So let’s jump ahead to the 1880’s. Excavations are underway at the Acropolis.

All the statues and other bits & bobs are found in pits, protected from the elements and all the general nastiness that took place under Ottoman rule — including the statue we’re talking about.

The Germans call the objects “Perserschutt,” which means “Persian debris.” I don’t know what it is about the Germans, but they have a word for everything.

This painted statue we’re talking about is called a “Kore,” and there were a ton of them back then. Basically it’s a free-standing statue of a woman, and you can clearly tell it’s from an earlier time than those we think of as “Ancient Greek.” This was an era before the elegantly posed figures, twisted and contorted and showing off the artist’s knowledge of drapery and anatomy.

This particular painted statue bears the wonderfully romantic name of “Kore 685.”

It’s what’s in the main picture at the top of this page, with a reproduction showing color right behind it. That replica was made way back in 1888, but it does give us a rudimentary idea of what these statues originally looked like.

Actually if this replica of the painted and the drawings done back then didn’t exist, we’d have missed out on a lot. Once painted statues like these come out of the ground, the paint vanishes quickly. Here’s a quote from an art critic who saw them shortly after they were dug up:

”The beautiful statue first described lay on a table in the museum on the Acropolis in May, 1883, and already some of its color had been shaken off; for as it lay it was surrounded by a little deposit of green, red and black powder which had fallen from it.”

In the words of the philosopher Theodorus, “All we are is dust in the wind.”

They Do the Sand Dance (Don’t You Know)

Where’d the Greeks get their inspiration for their painted statues? Or just statues in general? Almost certainly from Ancient Egypt. No, really. 

Take a look at the Kore’s severe style, and compare it to those of Ancient Egypt. Or check out a Kouros statue, the male counterpart of the Kore. It’s a pharaonic pose for sure.

Of course, Egypt had been around for thousands of years at this point, and they traded heavily with the Minoans of Crete. We can also see Egyptian influence on Greek architecture — take a look at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut and tell me the Greeks didn’t rip it off. Someone should claim copyright infringement. 

So it’s not a stretch to see how the painted statues of Egypt were imitated. And let me tell you, the Greeks loved their paint. Here’s Euripides, in a play:

”My life and fortunes are a monstrosity, partly because of Hera, partly because of my beauty. If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect, the way you would wipe color off a statue…”

Meaning, statues without color were nasty; like an influencer without a filter. 

But color wasn’t just to make something look pretty — specific shades had specific uses and meanings. There were four main colors at the time, each attached to the four ancient elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Kind of like Captain Planet. 

So the gods had yellow hair, showing their power, blue signified ties to the water, and many aspects were uniform.

I don’t want to get off on a tangent here, but Ancient Greek color is a surprisingly deep subject. Apparently they didn’t discern colors in the same way we do, and philosophers debated their reflectivity and how light changed them. Plato actually lists “shining” as a color. 

Painted Statues & Whitewashing

As I said, these painted statues were preserved because the Greeks buried them deep, just like I buried my disappointment at the Star Wars sequels.

Once the statues were exposed, the paint suffered. And on top of that, a lot of it got scrubbed off. Not necessarily on these from the Acropolis, but in general. You had well intentioned people cleaning them, sometimes to remove soot that built up from the lamps they used to light them. 

But sometimes, the scrubbing was done with a purpose. In the 1700’s, a German archaeologist said:

”The whiter the body is, the more beautiful it is as well.”

Which…yeah. Let’s ignore the racial undertones there, because that’s not what he meant. Rather, there was a long-held belief that statues were more attractive if they lacked color. So certainly, there were some who sought to wipe clean the remnants of pigment. 

In recent years, there’s been an effort to educate people on just how brightly colored these painted statues once were. Modern technology is able to pick up the leftovers and make estimates. Some have accused those who’ve made these of going overboard to prove a point — but I also have to wonder if there was a degree of subtle shading and blending we’re unable to discern. 

Either way, I think we’ve been trained to see things as that German guy did; partially because of those like him, but also because of the artists of the Renaissance like Michelangelo, who were so heavily influenced by ancient sculptures — sculptures they saw as pure white.