“The Acropolis Restoration Project: Recent Developments and Applications

“The Acropolis of Athens. Contemporary Interventions for the Protection of the Monuments” Vassiliki Eleftheriou An extended restoration program has been in progress on the Monuments of the Athenian Acropolis since 1975. The project is carried out by the Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports in order to confront the significant preservation problems that are due to natural causes (i.e. earthquakes) or human activities (i.e. fires, bombardments or shortfalls of earlier restorations). The interventions are imbued with the spirit of the “Charter of Venice” and follow the principle of reversibility. Effort is placed to keep the original construction form of the monuments. The presentation will portray the restoration programs that are completed (i.e. the Erechteion, the Temple of Athena Nike, the central building of the Propylaia and four of the twelve programs of the Parthenon) and outline the projects currently underway at the Propylaia and the Parthenon. “Laser Photons in Cultural Heritage: Analysis, Diagnostics, Conservation” Dimitris Anglos The meaningful study and successful conservation of cultural heritage objects present important scientific and technological challenges because of the inherently complex, multi-component nature of materials in such objects, which quite often suffer additionally from different causes of natural or anthropogenic degradation or deterioration. As a result, to identify materials on or in cultural heritage objects and to implement optimal conservation methodologies relies on the existence of effective tools for non-invasive diagnosis and safe intervention. Optical and analytical technologies play a key role in this respect. Advances in this area have greatly improved the quality and potential of laser cleaning, extending its applicability into new demanding conservation problems.

Speaker: Dr Demetrios Anglos, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Crete and Associated Researcher at IESL- FORTH, and Vassiliki Eleftheriou, Director of the Acropolis Restoration Service