Lime plaster that were sculpted with lime plaster over armatures of reeds and twine. They were made in the pre-pottery neolithic period, around 7200 BC. The fact that these sculptures have lasted so long is a testament to the durability of lime plaster. Lime plaster Lime plaster is a type of plaster composed of sand, water, and lime, usually non-hydraulic hydrated lime (also known as slaked lime, high calcium lime or air lime). Ancient lime plaster often contained horse hair for reinforcement and pozzolan additives to reduce the working time. Traditional non-hydraulic hydrated lime only sets through carbonatation when the plaster is
Cement blocks were cemented together with a mortar made of sand and roughly burnt gypsum (CaSO·2HO), which often contained calcium carbonate (CaCO). Lime (calcium oxide) was used on Crete and by the ancient Greeks. There is evidence that the Minoans of Crete used crushed potshards as an artificial pozzolan for hydraulic cement. Nobody knows who first discovered that a combination of hydrated non-hydraulic lime and a pozzolan produces a hydraulic mixture (see also: Pozzolanic reaction)—but such concrete was used by the Ancient Macedonians, and three centuries later on a large scale by Roman engineers. The Greeks used volcanic tuff from the