The Temple of Dendur in Color, courtesy of the Met.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has brought to life the Temple of Dendur – with a technological and artistic feat called Color the Temple Scene.
Part of the old Egyptian temple walls were transformed into its original colorful state, though the walls have not been painted or touched by human hands. Instead, colored drawings are projected onto the ancient etchings, giving the viewer a glimpse of what they looked like in the the past.
Walk into any museum, and one will find the same old clay or gray colored wall carvings that have survived the transition of time. Most of us believe that, that is how these wall carvings were originally; mono-colored but that is far from the truth. The hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt were originally done with color – bold, bright color! Time and poor conditions have dulled and taken away the wall paintings original magnificence, but technology has restored it for our viewing pleasure once again.
One of the exhibit’s creators Matt Felsen describes the new technology as “a tool that uses projected light to digitally restore color on The Temple of Dendur”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg8pVmBwmcI
The Color The Temple technique only restores a small section of the exhibit; as you can see from the video – but it is still a marvel. The walls were a wonder before they were colored now that we can see them in all their splendor, it is awe inspiring, here are some of the comments from the Met museums blog.
- Karene Infranco says:
Fantastic! It would be incredible to see the entire temple in full color!
Posted: January 13, 2016, 1:17 p.m.
- Annette Wallach Cohen says:
It’s really amazing to see the colorization of these wonderful ancient works. I do believe that the Roman statues also had color. They were advertisements for political candidates!
Posted: January 15, 2016, 9:10 a.m.
The Color The Temple Scene I, is located in the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian Wing at the Metroploitan Museum. It is on view on Fridays and Saturdays from 5pm to 9pm and will be opened until March 19th 2016.