The Engineering Approach to Conservation of Massive Archaeological Structures in Seismic Areas: The Apollo Nymphaeum in Hierapolis of Phrygia

ABSTRACT

The safety conditions of archaeological remains in seismic areas are strongly jeopardised by a lack of structural completeness, which may trigger dynamic responses among parts and led to partial or overall collapses. However, some of those structures maintain their massive behaviour, which makes the dynamic characterisation difficult for possible predictive analyses.

It is the case of the Nymphaeum of Apollo in Hierapolis of Phrygia (Turkey), an impressive stone block masonry structure of the 3rd c. CE, which lies over an active fault. The incomplete structural conditions and the presence of multi-leaf cross sections make this case study of great interest to verifying the reliability of using numerical models for assessment.

The discrete element approach was applied to perform nonlinear dynamic analyses under increasing levels of seismicity. The numerical model was based on: i) the detailed shaping of blocks texture, and ii) the onsite inspections and non-destructive testing. Data was also implemented into the numerical model to perform sensitivity analyses.

Results showed that the engineering approach proposed herein is able to overcome the challenges imposed by such a massive archaeological structure, facing the unknowns left over by experimental investigations with the opportunity offered by numerical methods such as discrete element modelling.

KEYWORDS:

• Archaeological remains
• block masonry
• discrete element modelling
• dynamic characterisation
• non-destructive testing
• nonlinear dynamic analysis
• seismic vulnerability

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank R. Deiana and M. Secco for their collaboration on onsite testing and J. Kim for his support on data processing. Master SAHC (Structural Analysis of Monuments and Historical Constructions) consortium is also acknowledged for the opportunity of thesis work on the subject.

CRediT statement

Conceptualization and methodology: MRV, FL, JB; Validation, formal analysis and data curation: FL, MS, MP, JB; Investigation: MRV, FL, MS, JB; Writing - Original Draft: MRV, FL, MS, MP, JB; Writing - Review & Editing: MRV, FL, MS; Visualization: MS, MP; Supervision: MRV, FL, MS; Project administration and funding acquisition: MRV.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

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Additional information

Funding

This project was carried out within the framework of PRIN 2015 “Archaeology of urban landscapes in Asia Minor between late Hellenism and Byzantine age. Multidisciplinary approaches to the study of Hierapolis in Phrygia” (Italian principal investigator: G. Semeraro, University of Salento, Italy; local coordinator: M.R. Valluzzi, University of Padova, Italy).