Stone and mosaics conservation
The Stone and Mosaics Conservation Laboratory of the Ephorate has been active throughout the years in monasteries on Mount Athos and archaeological sites in Chalkidiki, as the need arises, and recently, in the completion of the exhibition of the Byzantine Museum of Chalkidiki in Nea Flogita and the reopening of the Archaeological Museum of Polygyros.
A large part of the Laboratory’s work includes sculptures made of various types of stones, whether figurative sculptures, hologlyphs or reliefs, or architectural sculptures from standing monuments or products of excavation. Equally important is the care shown by the Laboratory in regularly monitoring the condition of mosaics and marble inlay floorings (opus sectile technique) in archaeological sites. In general, the Laboratory carries out preventive interventions to minimize deterioration when deemed necessary or systematic conservation, as part of a wider archaeological activity.
Among the most important sculptures conserved are the sculptures of the funerary monument in Stratoni, which is on display at the Archaeological Museum of Polygyros and various architectural sculptures (parapets, capitals, colonnettes, etc. from the Zygou monastery, the basilica of Bishop Sophronios in Nikiti, the basilicas of Varvara, the basilica in Byadoudi, Epanomi etc.), which are on display at the Byzantine Museum of Chalkidiki in Nea Flogita. Interesting are the sculptures that were conserved on site at the Zygou monastery, the Vatopedi monastery (the parapets at the open exonarthex of the katholikon and the phiale), as well as the Iviron monastery (the capitals and the old altar screen of the katholikon). Among the most important mosaic floors that the Laboratory undertook to restore are those at Olynthus: the famous pebble mosaic of the Villa of Good Fortune and others in houses within the urban area of the ancient city. Equally extensive conservation was carried out on the mosaic floors of the early Christian basilica of Sophronios in Nikiti, and the basilica of Solina in Kallithea. Lastly, special emphasis was given to the inlay floorings that adorn various Athonite monasteries, which are rarely recorded in Greece: at Megisti Lavra (in the katholikon and its two chapels, in the chapel of St. Nicholas at the Dorter and in the chapel of St. Athanasius “of the tonsure [koura]”), Vatopedi Monastery (in the katholikon, in the kyriakon of the Skete of St. Demetrius) and the katholikons of the Iviron, Xenophon, Karakallou and Zygou monasteries.
