Viminacium: Landscape and Heritage (Trans)formation

Nikolić, Emilija; Tapavički-Ilić, Milica; Delić-Nikolić, Ivana

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60016-7_73

Cited by 1 publication

(6 citation statements)

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“…However, Viminacium's narrow territory, as a part of the Kostolac lignite basin, was rich in coal instead [46,81]. Its exploitation was not mentioned in sources until the 19th century, and underground mining officially started in 1873 [19,20,46,67]. Thus, it is not known if Romans of Viminacium exploited coal as a fuel, but it is possible that they knew about its presence, since its layers were close to the surface [18,67].…”

Section: Historical Use Of Natural Brickmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Its exploitation was not mentioned in sources until the 19th century, and underground mining officially started in 1873 [19,20,46,67]. Thus, it is not known if Romans of Viminacium exploited coal as a fuel, but it is possible that they knew about its presence, since its layers were close to the surface [18,67]. It is written by a chronicler of the Kostolac underground mining that the coal layers were revealed from the surface and thus enabled simultaneous coal exploitation and exploration works [18].…”

Section: Historical Use Of Natural Brickmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In England, the burnt mudrocks (shales) from the cliffs at Dorset Coast [103] were used for decorative flooring, that is, mosaic tesserae and slabs for opus sectile technique, in Silchester Roman town, Fishbourne Roman palace, Angmering Roman villa, and Eccles Roman villa, as well as in Caerleon Fortress baths in Wales, and were dated to the mid 1st and early 2nd centuries. It was assumed that the raw mudrocks from the beds in Dorset that were not naturally burnt were probably only collected here and later burnt on the beach or nearby, being transported afterward, while only a limited quantity of sediment burnt on site after self-combustion, due to their organic-rich nature, was additionally used [46,67,[104][105][106][107].…”

Section: Historical Use Of Natural Brickmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2023

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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 raw materials. The area where Viminacium, the largest city in the province of Moesia Superior developed, with millennial continuity of land use and settlement, was selected as research case study and is presented in this research. People throughout history have always used what they had at hand, and the building remains were not only reused but also recycled for new constructions. Thus, the building material of Roman Viminacium has survived in the landscape through the in situ preserved remains of Roman buildings, as well as in the structures from the later periods, up to today. To the best of our knowledge, the use of natural sediments baked during the self-combustion or combustion of underneath layers (coal in our case) for the purpose of construction was extremely rare in the Roman Empire. In this study, we follow the presence of this type of material precisely in Viminacium construction, naming it natural brick, while focusing on its potential use in lime mortars whose production was perfected in the Roman period and has never been surpassed afterward. Archaeological contexts in which this material was found have been studied, along with simultaneous work in the laboratory and in the field during the research and experimental use of the natural brick in lime mortars. We sought to determine whether this material could have been recognised by Romans in Viminacium as a potential valuable pozzolanic component of mortar, along with or instead of fired brick, being locally available and recyclable. The final confirmation of its pozzolanic features and later discussion open completely new directions for the future research of Viminacium lime mortars.

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