I want to share a few excellent articles I read while on vacation with the fam in Boston.  The surprisingly interesting Smithsonian magazine (my grandparents are subscribers) featured an article about an archaeologist attempting to reproduce the colors of the Ancient Grecian statues.  My ignorance aside, this was a complete revelation to me.  I assumed, much like Michelangelo and the rest of Renaissance Rome, that the Greeks preferred their statues in “plain” white marble.  At least my ignorance shared good company.

As stated in the article, Euripides play Helen of Troy makes clear how the Greeks preferred their statues:

If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect
The way you would wipe color off a statue.

After you finish reading about the statues, check out the excellent feature about the restoration efforts currently underway on the Parthenon and the subsequent insights into the architectural processes those efforts have helped surface.