Historians, eager to find out what could be hidden underneath early artwork, used airport security scanners to discover mysteries beneath frescos and artwork without damaging the surface.
The terahertz radiation that is used in the scanners during routine security checks on passengers is able to produce an image that can reveal hidden artwork beneath a finished piece.
Artists often used the same canvas because they couldn't afford another or to retouch an already completed piece of art.
Wall frescos were also known to be altered due to a building's new owner or because it needed to be retouched.
The research on using the body scanners to reveal possible hidden artwork was presented to the American Chemical Society in New Orleans at a meeting on Wednesday.
"We were amazed, and we were delighted," said J. Bianca Jackson, an expert in terahertz spectroscopy at the University of Rochester.
"We could not believe our eyes as the image materialized on the screen."
Among the discoveries was an early fresco hidden beneath "Trois hommes armés de lances" or "Three men armed with lances" - a treasured fresco featured at the Louvre Museum.
"Underneath the top painting of the folds of a man's tunic, we saw an eye, a nose and then a mouth appear," Jackson said. "We were seeing what likely was part of an ancient Roman fresco, thousands of years old."
Different forms of technology are often applied to the art history realm in the form of X-ray radiography, infrared photography and UV lights so that forgeries can be determined and to discover hidden artwork like the example seen in this report.
In this case, the terahertz radiation is weak enough not to cause damage to fragile, ancient artwork. However, the process takes a few hours just to process an area only as big as a letter-sized sheet of paper.
(SOURCE)