After a decade-long restoration, the 2,200-year-old giant marble frieze known as the Pergamon Altar of ancient Greece gleamed again Thursday at the heart of Berlin's cultural landscape.
The muscular gods and warriors of the white altar, considered a priceless jewel of Hellenic sculpture, were gently cleaned and restored at a cost of nearly three million euros (3.6 million dollars).
It was to be reopened to the public later Thursday.
"Just holding the pieces in my hand was a honour," chief restorer Silvano Bertolin told Berlin's daily Tagesspiegel.
"It was truly a colossal job - we must have moved these 150 tonnes of stone two dozen times."
Bertolin and his team removed the accumulated dust and dirt of the last decades, but also the cement, plaster and iron dowel pins used in previous well-intentioned but clumsy restorations that threatened to split the marble.
Using rubble belonging to the altar but never reintegrated into it, Bertolin sorted through thousands of pieces in the basement of the Pergamon Museum to complete various scenes. Each of the panels was also remounted with non-corrosive materials.
Armed with a tool chest packed with dentist-style drills, hammers and chisels and then a finishing rinse of pure water - Bertolin avoided harsh chemicals - the team completed the Herculean job and allowed the frieze to reclaim its epic force.
Freed from their grime, the wings flutter again feather for feather, each strand of hair waves in the wind and the flowing robes betray each pleat.
Ruins of the 113 meter by 36 meter (371 foot by 118 foot) altar depicting grisly battle scenes between the gods and a horde of giants were unearthed by German researchers in 1878 in Bergama, in today's western Turkey.
Archaeologists spent two decades piecing together the remnants and were given permission by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire to claim the altar for Germany.
Although the original pedestals, steps and some columns remained in Bergama, its 117 panels were shipped to the imperial capital in 1901 to satisfy Kaiser Wilhelm II's enduring fascination with antiquity.
The Pergamon Museum on Berlin's Museum Island was built especially to showcase the find and was later joined by other discoveries including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
Threatened by bombing during World War II, the treasure was hauled away to a bunker for protection. After the fall of Berlin, the Red Army spirited it away to Leningrad (today's St. Petersburg) before restoring it to its museum in communist East Berlin in 1958.
After German unification in 1990, the Pergamon Museum began to benefit from the wave of reconstruction in the east sponsored by the federal government. Turkey, meanwhile, continues to stake a claim to the altar.
Although the altar had been open to the public during most of its restoration, much of its was often hidden behind scaffolding.
Next to the bust of Queen Nefertiti of Egypt, the Pergamon Altar is Berlin's most spectacular cultural holding, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.
Museum Island, part of the Unesco World Cultural Heritage Site, was built in stages around the turn of the last century. It is now undergoing a multimillion-euro makeover scheduled for completion around 2010.
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