The use of colouring on the statues of Hierapolis

The paper presents the main results of the research on the ancient use of colouring on marble statues in Hierapolis, which integrates the art-historical approach and the archaeometric investigations. the items discussed in the paper are the reliefs and decorative statuary of the Severan theatre, and materials from the north agora. Egyptian blue, red and yellow ochre were detected,together with traces of ancient treatments. Some new data are also presented on ancient restorations of the statues of the larger-than life statues of demeter and Kore-Persephone, which underwent an interesting “updating” process.