An investigation to establish the source of the Roman lime mortars used in Wallsend, UK

Abstract

This paper presents the results of analytical work which aimed to explore potential sources for the lime mortar used in the Hadrianic fort baths and a third-century repair to Hadrian's Wall at Wallsend, UK. It is generally assumed that quick lime for mortar is produced close to the source, however, as yet, no archaeological evidence of kilns has been found in the Wallsend area. After extensive analysis the mortars were found to be very different in characteristics and suggest variable sources for the quarried limestone and for the aggregates used to manufacture the mortar.

Multi-technical characterization of Roman mortars from Complutum, Spain

“…Recent studies have presented detailed information about different construction phases and technologies in historic buildings based on mortar characterizations [2-8], especially Roman mortar, due to its outstanding durability [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The main issue was the addition of pozzolan which makes mortar highly durable which was previously mentioned by Vitruvius and proved by researchers [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The construction technique of the Roman builders who used concrete with both natural and artificial pozzolanic materials in accurate proportions, are identifiable markers of the empire's presence.The Complutum archaeological site is a complex of remains from the eponymous Roman city located on the Henares River terrace.…”

Pore structure and interdisciplinary analyses in Roman mortars: Building techniques and durability factors identification

“…The high number of pores with a diameter less than 1 μm is evidence of a hydraulic lime phase within the matrix. To contextualize the mortars, Table 6 allows a comparison among the main physical properties of the analysed materials and Roman mortars from water-related and/or coetaneous buildings analysed in recent research works during the last 10 years [5,9,11,15,54,57,17,[57][58][59][60][61][62][63].…”

“…Table 7 provides the compositional characterization of Roman mortars from water-related and/or coetaneous buildings [5,9,11,15,54,57,17,[57][58][59][60][61][62][63]. The Baelo Claudia mortars are quite similar in terms of chemical composition to those of similar constructions.…”

“…It is important to note that further work is needed to identify potential sources of the raw materials. Focusing on lime, although it is generally assumed that quick lime for mortar was produced close to the source [61], so far no archaeological evidence of kilns has been found in the area. However, the city is located in the Almarchal area (Fig.…”

Badania historycznych zapraw z Baszty Gotyckiej w Lublinie

“…Badania i charakterystyka zabytkowych zapraw jest istotnym narzędziem identyfikacji pochodzenia składników, służy również do pozyskiwania informacji o historycznej ewolucji zabytku [5,6,7,8].Właściwości techniczne zapraw są zależne od surowców [9].…”