Recycling and Reuse of Building Materials in a Historical Landscape. Viminacium Natural Brick (Serbia)

Abstract

During the MoDeCo2000 scientific and research project on mortars used in the territory of the Roman Danube Limes in Serbia, the biggest challenge was the quest for the provenance of used raw materials. The area where the largest city in the province of Moesia Superior developed, with millennial continuity of land use and settlement, was selected as a case study for deeper research. The material and immaterial values of Roman Viminacium have survived in the later life of the landscape, through the preserved building remains and artifacts, secondary use of building materials, but also toponyms, customs, and stories. Recycling of materials is commonly recognised in the modern age as the industrial processing of existing products in order to obtain raw materials and later prepare new products, representing one of the basic elements of sustainability. However, people throughout history have always used what they had at hand and the building remains were reused, but also recycled for new constructions. In this study we follow the presence of the specific material we call natural brick in the historical Viminacium landscape, focusing on Roman construction and specifically its potential use in lime mortars, connecting humanistic and natural sciences.

Recycling and Reuse of Building Materials in a Historical Landscape—Viminacium Natural Brick (Serbia)

“…The focus will be given to the Roman period which left the largest number of material remains. Viminacium natural brick [46,53,[66][67][68], more precisely naturally fired brick [69], is called "crvenka (reddish)" by the local community. Its bed is situated in the territory of the surrounding town and village of the same name (Kostolac) along with the former underground lignite mine, and it has been exploited for construction purposes from antiquity to the modern age [46,53,[66][67][68].…”

“…Were these fragments that we encounter in Viminacium mortars always created by crushing and grinding the bricks, tiles, or pottery, as usual, or were the origins of some of them connected to natural brick formation? The research on this topic started a few years ago [67], but in the recent period more research was mutually connected, mixing the archaeological view on the topic with laboratory investigations in natural sciences, offering initial chemical, physical, and mechanical characteristics of natural brick, and resulting in the creation and application of experimental mixtures of mortar using this material as an addition or admixture [68]. This research process provided us with important data that can be used for further research in the sciences, but also for future social and economic interpretations of activities of reuse and recycling related to building materials and construction in general in the Viminacium historical landscape.…”