ABSTRACT
Vaulted and domed structures represent a brilliant technological innovation in the context of the evolution of building techniques. This chapter focuses on the comparison between the buildings in the Italian territory, and identifies new sites in the Mediterranean area, in particular in North Africa, Greece and Turkey. It investigates the technical and mechanical aspects related to compression testing and chemical petrographic characterization, compared with numerical models. A special construction technique, typical of the Mediterranean, is one that uses fictile clay tubules. In the present work, experimental tests were carried out in order to investigate on the mechanical and chemical properties of hollow clay fictile tubules. The large category of hollow clay fictile tubules includes three general elements: tubules, amphorae, "caroselli". The construction system with amphorae are located in different historic buildings in the filling of the structures built in opus caementicium, but also in the roofing.
