Light Beams to Color Rome Column

April 10, 2008 -- The Trajan Column, one of Rome's most famous monuments, will be shown next year under a totally new light. Italian researchers announced they plan to restore the column's original bright colors by "painting" it with light beams.

Erected in 113 A.D. in honor of the Emperor Trajan (53-117 A.D.), the huge marble column stands almost 100 feet in height. It is decorated with a spiral relief sculpture, winding 23 times around and depicting the story of Trajan's triumphant campaigns in Dacia, now part of Romania.

One of the best preserved of all Roman artworks, the monument has however lost what might have been it most distinctive feature -- color.

"The column, like many other statues of antiquity, was a carnival of color. The knights, the shields, the horses, the rivers, the sky were all painted," Maurizio Anastasi, head of the technical office of Rome Superintendency for Archaeology told Discovery News.

Anastasi plans to return the column to its full polychrome glory using an innovative, fully reversible technology. The plan was announced at an international meeting on art restoration in Ferrara, Italy last week.