Thousand Year Lime Plaster

[polygonum]

OK - so it doesn't fade in a thousand years, but how long would lime plaster stay stuck on the wall and undamaged outside?

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*Bedford coffee shop boasts Michelangelo fresco recreation *

A fresco painted on the side of a Bedford coffee house using an ancient artform may "last for a thousand years", the shop's owner claims.

Part of Michelangelo's Libyan Sibyl has been recreated on the outside wall of Frescoes in Mill Street.

Artist Iain Carstairs used pigment paint on lime plaster, a technique dating back to about 1500 BC.

Shop owner Kevin Kavanagh, said: "The building will fall down before it fades."

He said the piece, copied from a work on the ceiling of Rome's Sistine Chapel, took three months and approximately £12,000 to complete.

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[Andy Burns]

It'll get painted over the next time the shop changes hands!

[Jim K]

indefinitely if erm... painted with limewash regularly.... ah.....

Jim K

[Chris Hogg]

rain on lime plaster will degrade the surface in time.

[Onetap]

Lime mortar will last indefinitely if protected from rain but reverts to mud if it gets saturated. The pointing on lime-mortar brickwork need to be replaced regularly. I'd guess about 15 years.

[stuart noble]

if it gets saturated.

if it faces SW it will certainly get saturated

[Jethro_uk]

was considerable restoration going on, it emerged that English Heritage preferred the use of completely authentic materials. Including hand mixing proper lime plaster on site. When asked why, the answer was disarmingly simple.

"Well the original has been proven to last 600 years. There's nothing modern that we can say the same of."

Food for thought.

[polygonum]

Was that inside? Or out?

Of course,in six hundred years we will know what has equal survival capability. But there again, of all the lime plaster used in the past

600 years, what percentage is still there? I'd suggest a minute percentage.

[harry]

Very susceptible to frost damage if it gets wet. Might last a thousand years indoors.

[harry]

mud if it gets saturated.

When lime is applied, it is calcium hydroxide. It reacts out with atmospheric CO2 to make less soluble calcium carbonate. But still suscebtible to acid rain.

[Jethro_uk]

Many years ago I read a fascinating story of the Pre-Raphaelites, who were invited to decorate the Oxford Library with frescos. Unfortunately they didn't know the plaster needed to be wet, with the result the colours look crap. The story was written with a touch of wry irony, as one of their few champions at the time was John Ruskin, who lived and breathed classical technique, and could have advised them in a moment.

[polygonum]

Obviously not very good at Italian. :-)

Is that (painting onto set plaster) not called secco?

[PeterC]

I am really amazed that modern materials and buildings haven't been around for 600 years!

[John Williamson]

*Are* there any "modern" building materials? There are very few truly modern building materials in common use that I can think of. Fibreglass, maybe? That's Modern!!! (tm) and New!!! (tm). We know that some early forms can last at least half a century, as the St. James' church spire roof on Piccadilly proves. So are epoxy adhesives. Other oil based products may spring to mind. Even gypsum plaster, often thought to have first been used in the 19th Century, was known to the Egyptians, with surviving examples of its use in some of the pyramids, for instance. Three thousand years and it's still good. they have kept the water out, though....

Bricks have been around for many thousands of years in one form or another, starting with composite bricks made from mud and grass or hair. Timber has been used for a long time, with some timber buildings having lasted many centuries. Some metals are known to survive many centuries, even exposed to the weather, although they're not pikey proof.

[polygonum]

Though we can be surprised when a change to an existing formulation ends in a much shorter life, or disaster. High alumina cement, anyone?

[John Williamson]

Ah, yes, the falling-down swimming pools.

[The Natural Philosopher]

reminds of of my time at GEC, where they were still using GERMANIUM for undersea repeaters 'Silicon hasn't been around long enough that we can say it will last 25 years'

Its the safe bet but one feels that concrete from WWII is still there..

I imagine in 1000 years one berobed Tony Robinson will be excavating and say 'that's a really RARE find, and intact concrete genuine 21st century windmill base' Cuts to viewer 'These bases were part of a religious ritual to placate the primitive goddess Gaia: They really believed they could affect the weather by building them. No one knows how such a loony religion appeared, but there you are. Isn't archaeology fun!"

[newshound]

For that matter, the Roman equivalent is still around and working

ROFL!

[Huge]

The dome of the Pantheon is still there ...

[Jethro_uk]

There's an impressive stretch of Roman wall (complete with arch) left at Wroxeter