The study of ancient art has led to a lot of our known history about ancient civilizations, but it is not only the surviving works that tell the story, but also the ones that have not survived the years, which is the case with the tales of the Sack of Troy. Also the writings about these lost pieces provide today’s researchers with many other influential insights about ancient cultures. A comparison of a vase painted by Kleophrades and the painting by Polygnotos, as described by Pausanias, will help with the explanation of how lost art can provide insight into ancient history. There are many vases and smaller pieces of artwork that have survived from the time of the Greeks, which describe parts of the Sack of Troy, but the detailed description of the painting of The Sack of Troy, by Polygnotos, described by Pausanias, provides us with new insight to the story as well as what the painters may have been trying to represent in their representations.
             Polygnotos was described by Pliny the Elder as an innovator in painting, with such revolutionary styles of painting as women with transparent drapery, representing the mouth open, which showed the teeth, and changing the faces from the rigidity, which previously existed. Polytgnotos, sometimes written as Polygnotus, was from Thasos and lived about 420 B.C. The actual Sack of Troy is said to have taken place around 1200 B.C., which means the information Polygnotos used for the painting came sources such as the Iliad and Odyssey, both written by Homer around 750 and 715 B.C., and in the writings of Lescheos of Pyrrha, son of Aeschylinus.
             The missing artwork by Polygnotos is necessarily the important piece, but the information that is written about it is. Pausanias wrote about the painted wall on the inside of the Lesche of the Knidians at Delphi (Fig. 1) in his book of travels, which reads as a travel book to the ancient world of the Greeks. Pausanias explains many features of the paint...