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.