"This doesn't happen often, says Flora Karagianni, director of EKBMM. Usually, we already know about the frescoes and we restore them. To see white walls suddenly reveal figures and faces is a moment of great joy and revelation. This did not happen elsewhere. In other monuments we've preserved outside Greece, the frescoes were known and we simply did cleaning and stabilization. The joy of such a discovery, we truly experienced at the Church of Saint Nicholas."
"Medieval wall paintings long hidden beneath plaster and limewash are reappearing inside the Byzantine monastery church of Agios Nikolaos (Saint Nicholas) in Mesopotamos, Albania, after conservators uncovered previously unknown frescoes during a continuing restoration programme. The discovery was announced last year by the European Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments (EKBMM), which has been working with Albania's Ministry of Culture and other local authorities to restore the 13th-century church, once part of an Orthodox monastery in what is now southern Albania."
Conservators removing layers of plaster and limewash near the church ceiling uncovered several previously unknown medieval frescoes. The discovery occurred during an ongoing restoration of the 13th-century Byzantine monastery church of Agios Nikolaos in Mesopotamos, Albania. The European Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments (EKBMM) is collaborating with Albania's Ministry of Culture and local authorities on the project. The monastery was likely built in 1224 or 1225 on the site of an ancient temple dating to the 3rd or 4th century BC. Most monastic buildings were demolished during Albania's communist era, though the church survived intact. The restoration began in 2021 and a conservation study was approved in 2024. Non-destructive imaging and spectroscopic diagnostics have been used to analyse pigments.
Read at Medievalists.net
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