DNAinfo.com reports that the Central Park Conservancy could use high-definition projectors to cast images of the hieroglyphs back onto the Obelisk. By doing so, the conservators said, nocturnal visitors would have an opportunity to see what the images originally looked like when the obelisk was built 3,500 years ago.
Dr. Andrzej Dajnowski, the head conservator of the project and his fellow preservationists gave New York's oldest public monument a $500,000 high-tech facelift from March 2014 to September 2015. Using powerful laser beams, they painstakingly cleaned off the grime on the Obelisk's 69-foot-high granite shaft and nearly 7-foot-tall base. A tiny section could take hours to scrub with the laser light, but Dajnowski said it was a labor of love.
"If somebody decided to project hieroglyphics onto the sculpture, that would essentially create the true image of the Obelisk without any damage," Dr. Andrzej Dajnowski, the head conservator of the project, told DNAinfo New York. "Since it's just light, it would be very, very appropriate." To read the article in its entirety, along with seeing pictures of the restoration, click here.