26502 - Greek Zeolite and Hagia Sophia

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

Certain issues don’t seem to have any direct relevance, so does the greek zeolite with Hagia Sophia. They sure have a common context due to Thrace and Constantinople, but there are also practical applications. Due to the church’s maintenance some decades ago they applied concrete to contain the pieces of external side below the roof. Now they saw that the concrete was damaged and it is preferable to apply mortar with pozzolans. In fact there have been analyses of the old material of the temple to find a synthesis which is close with regards to the ingredients. Now we see that zeolite has even better properties than this material which is used in maintenance of archeological monuments. So we can imagine that gradually maintenance for Hagia Sophia will use greek zeolite to continue its course after fifteen centuries thanks to a material that is from its own land. Because one of the temple’s characteristics is that it has a lot of mortar between the bricks which provide it with robust properties, since it surpassed over ten serious earthquakes, because this plasticity performed like the wood. So even to this can the greek zeolite help