During an attempt to restore the damaged paintings, the upper layer of plaster was removed to reveal the underlayer which contained the preliminary compositions drawn by brush in a red dye called sinope, a mixture of special red earth and water. Sinope is the name of a town in Syria where the dye was produced.

Painters used either this mixture or charcoal to trace the first outlines of the fresco composition. The Sinopite is therefore the underpainting which was never seen until modern times...