Seville history insight through their construction mortars

Abstract

AbstractSeville is intimately linked to its historic role and extensive cultural heritage. The city has been occupied by Romans, Arabs and Christians, who built important historical buildings. Roman (first–second centuries) and Arabic (eleventh century) buildings, medieval Shipyard (thirteenth century), San Isidoro and Santa Maria de las Cuevas monasteries (fifteenth century), Santa María de las Cuevas (fifteenth century modified in eighteenth century), El Salvador Church (eighteenth century), the Royal Ordnance building (eighteenth century) and Santa Angela de la Cruz convent (twentieth century) performed with lining mortars, and mortars used in building stones (City Hall and Marchena Gate), all of them located in Seville (Spain), have been studied. Ninety-four mortar samples (employed as structural, plaster, coating) originally used or applied in restoration processes have been collected to perform an archaeometry study. The ratio of CO2 mass loss to hydraulic water (H2O) mass loss, and the mineralogical characterization by X-ray diffraction has been used to compare the mortars used in the different historical periods. Mainly hydraulic mortars were widely used in all these studied monuments as most mortars showed CO2/H2O ratios within the 4–10 range. Moreover, the thermal analysis curves also showed a broad temperature range for the thermal decomposition of the carbonate fraction of the mortars.