The Greek Ministry of Culture completed the digital restoration of the hunting fresco in the tomb of Philip II at Vergina. The fresco, renowned as the largest and most important work of classical antiquity, has been rendered through advances in digital technology.
The project, named ReVis, is the first comprehensive and scientifically documented study of the frescoes at Aigai. The study employed photography methods to unveil design details invisible to the naked eye.
The team continued a quest that began a decade earlier in 2013, revisiting the relic depicting an older man and a younger man on horseback, possibly Philip II and Alexander the Great.
The digital restitution of the fresco blends art with science, including artificial intelligence tools developed by visual artist Christos Simatos and creative approaches introduced by painter Emmanouil Bitsakis. They worked under the oversight of Dr. Charikleia Brekoulaki, who leads the ReVis project, and Dr. Andreas Karydas, the coordinator overseeing field analyses, reported greekreporter.com.
The fresco, measuring over 5.5 meters in length and located in the frieze of Philip II's tomb, was originally found in 1977. Since then, the fresco featuring six hunting scenes with horsemen and foot hunters has been an emblem of monumental Greek painting, from the 4th century BCE.
The ReVis project included non-invasive diagnostic and imaging techniques, such as high-resolution photography and chemical scanning, to extract narratives embedded within these ancient hues. These methods have revealed a broader range of pigments and sophisticated techniques than previously understood,
In April, the findings will be presented at a summit titled "The Aigai Hunt Frieze Revealed: An Interdisciplinary Investigation and Digital Reconstruction." The event is to be hosted at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
“The ultimate goal of the research is a new digital restoration in natural dimensions based on new scientific data, allowing a more accurate approach to the original polychromy,” said Brekoulaki, the scientific lead of the ReVis project and a researcher at the National Hellenic Research Foundation, according to LIFO.
“Every restoration study is also an interpretation. It is a proposal, never something final. A digital restoration like this can be worked on forever; it can change,” Brekoulaki added.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.