Consolidation of stone blocks prior to placement: A case study of the Roman wall in Tarragona (Spain): Report and methodology

The possible pre-consolidation of the stones used to repair the Roman wall of Tarragona was studied, on the premise that this had been carried out prior to placement in the wall. A detailed study of the stones was conducted in order to determine whether they had been treated, and if so, how this had been done. A semi-quantitative X-ray mineralogical analysis using the Rietveld method was performed, together with porosity and textural analyses. This paper concludes with a discussion of how the stones studied here were pre-consolidated using lime slurry.