Restoring the Ruin
Finishing new marble
To level a new surface, the
team's masons again turn to an age-old technique. They sprinkle sand onto
the surface, then use a metal smoothing plate to work out imperfections. The
plate is an ancient invention, its modern counterpart based on stone plates
found on the Acropolis. Korres believes that those early plates could grind to
a precision of one-twentieth of a millimeter. Today, final sanding of distinctive features such as the column flutes seen here is done by hand using sandpaper.