Mechanical Behavior of ancient mortar specimens from Pompeii site

Preservation of archaeological asset in Pompeii site requestsa systematic planning of conservation interventions based on an interdisciplinary knowledge of the built heritage, in the respect of principles of compatibility, reversibility, distinguishability and minimum inter-vention. Nevertheless, a specific knowledge of constructive techniques used by Roman build-ers in the ancient Pompeii is still lacking, especiallywith respectto material mechanical properties. Nowadays, structural interventions are designed based on mechanical properties provided from Italian technical Standardfor existing buildings. In this study, mechanical properties of ancientmortarsfrom Pompeii archaeological siteare investigated. Elevenspecimens of ancientmortars were collected. They come from ma-sonry structures involved in the 79 A.D. Vesuvius’eruption and emerged for the first time as part of thenewarchaeological excavation worksin RegioV, started on May 2018. Further-more, twelvenew lime-based mortars specimens by usingtwo different aggregates were madebased on literature provisionsaboutancientRoman construction techniques. Compressive tests werecarried out on ancientand new mortarsspecimensandthe results are herein pre-sented and discussed.