Ancient restoration practices in the Monumental Nymphaeum at Tripolis ad Maeandrum (Turkey): multi-analytical approach on Roman and Byzantine bonding mortars

The study of ancient architectural restoration has recently gained attention in the field of archaeometry thanks to a new sensitivity for the long biographies of human artifacts. The paper focuses on ancient repairs documented in the column shafts of the Monumental Nymphaeum of Tripolis ad Maeandrum (Denizli, Turkey). Bonding mortars used to hold the ancient patches in place were sampled and analysed according to a multi-analytical protocol, coupling mineralogical and petrographic investigation (XRPD and OM) together with FT-IR and chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques (i.e. Py-GC-MS, GC- MS, HPLC-MS) for the characterisation of the inorganic and organic components. For the inorganic part, medium and fine-grained crystals of calcite are used as aggregates. As for the organic fractions, three different ingredients have been detected: egg, beeswax and Pinaceae resin. These multi-ingredient recipes detected in Tripolis are discussed with reference to ancient literary sources and the results of scientific investigations previously performed on ancient architectural repairs in the nearby city of Hierapolis of Phrygia, to highlight functional and chronological differences.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR).This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

Automated summary

The study focuses on the ancient repairs of the Monumental Nymphaeum in Turkey. Bonding mortars used in the repairs were analyzed using a multi-analytical protocol. The analysis revealed the use of calcite as aggregates for the inorganic part, and the presence of organic ingredients such as egg, beeswax, and Pinaceae resin. The findings were compared with ancient literary sources and previous scientific investigations to highlight functional and chronological differences.