Characterization of lime mortar and plasters of Fortress Concepción de la Vega

Abstract

The arrival of Christopher Columbus in America stimulated the creation of new settlements in which the materials and construction methods coming from Spain and those existing in the area were used. The first village built was La Isabela (1494) where the Spaniards found good limestone for ashlars and were able to make lime as well as good clay for earth walls, masonry walls, etc. After La Isabela, the cities of La Vega (1495) and Santo Domingo (1498) were established. These villas still include vestiges of these building materials that are a source of information about their composition. The study is focused on the ruins of the fortress of Concepcion de La Vega that survived the earthquake in 1562 that destroyed the city. The aim of this research was to characterize the mortar and plasters of the fortress of Concepcion de La Vega on the Hispaniola Island. To determine their chemical and mineralogical composition optical microscopy (OM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy and a thermogravimetric differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) were used. The results showed that the major component of the mortars was CaCO3 (95 %), indicating that there is lime mortar. The plaster is lime based with iron oxide.