Dr. Catherine Lomas

And here what you have is water.

It looks like a lake, maybe the sea, you know, we don't know.

I mean, this scene is still so mysterious to us.

And, you know, here we have some trees, and...

What makes it so interesting is the fact that it doesn't have so many comparisons, so many comparanda that we can look to in order to reconstruct what is going on.

And there are so many interpretations that have been suggested, that have been put forward for this scene.

But in a way, you know, we're still thinking, we're still trying to figure out the diver.

Yeah, there's a lot of attention to anatomical details.

I mean, you see a little bit of his beard, but not too much.

And that tells us that this is a young man, you know, not a full beard that would qualify him as an adult man.

But at the same time, this is not a child.

So that also suggests that what we are dealing with

It's almost like, you know, potentially an age group ritual, potentially a kind of, you know, coming of age moment.

So, you know, this dive must have been a very special dive.

Yes, so the technique that was used is the fresco technique, which means that the stone was coated with plaster, with a very thin layer of plaster.

I mean, this is very high-quality painting.

And while the plaster was still wet, the artist applied the pigments, the painting.

So this technique was widespread in the ancient Mediterranean from the Archaic period onwards.

Yeah, that is a very good question.

I mean, the tomb was discovered in 1968, over half a century ago, and scholars are still debating about its interpretation.