Rome
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Vivid scenes of battlefield decapitations and female prisoners dragged off by their hair, carved into the 1,840-year-old marble Column of Marcus Aurelius towering over central Rome, are being brought back into focus through a $2.3 million laser restoration.
A team of 18 specialist restorers has been working since the spring of 2025, using handheld short-pulse lasers and chemical wraps to remove centuries of grime from the 100-foot-tall monument. The column was built between 180 CE, the year the Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius died, and 193 CE.
The project marks the most extensive use of laser technology ever undertaken on an ancient monument, according to…