241 Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites – Bilotta, Flora, Lirer & Viggiani (eds) © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00055-1 Site characterization by in situ and laboratory tests for the structural & architectural restoration of Saint Nicholas Church, Nicosia, Cyprus A. Cavallaro CNR-IBAM, Catania, Italy L. Cessari & E. Gigliarelli CNR-ITABC, Roma, Italy ABSTRACT: The Bedestan (Saint Nicholas Church) is located in Cyprus, in the Turkish part of the his- toric heart of the city of Nicosia only a step away from the ancient Latin Cathedral of Santa Sofia, today the Selimiye mosque. It gets its name from its function of cloth and precious object market during the Ottoman period (1570–1878) following the transformation of a pre-existing Christian church. The action objectives are the enhancement of a building of great architectural value by means of action aimed at its static consolidation, conservative restoration and its requalification and re-insertion inside the historic quarter of Selimye. The development of the project is preceded by a thorough diagnostic study. In order to study the soil-structure interaction a comprehensive in situ and laboratory investigation has been carried out to obtain a soil profile. For site characterization of soil deep site investigations have been undertaken. Borings and SPT have been performed. Moreover samples were retrieved for laboratory tests. preceded by a long and painstaking campaign of analysis and fact-finding investigations regarding the history of the building, its state of conserva- tion and the physical and mechanical characteris- tics of the materials and structures. To obtain a soil profile of site characterization for seismic response analysis in situ and laboratory investigations have been described. 2 THE HISTORY OF ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH (BEDESTAN) The history of St. Nicholas Church (Bedestan) begins in the Byzantine Period (330–1190), with the building of a 6th Century basilica. In the 13th Century, The Catholic Church of St. Nicholas of the English was constructed on the top of the basilica by monks of the medieval order of St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred in 1170 and canonized in 1173. These monks, who were serving in the Holy Land, were forced to leave the Holy Land, in late 12th Century, after loosing to the Arabs/Saracens and came to set- tle in Cyprus. They were later forced to leave Cyprus and returned to England, where the Order was later dissolved in 1538 by Hendry VIII of England. The feudal domination of the Lusignans, stem- ming from French nobles, who ruled Cyprus (1192–1489), left clear traces of restructuring on 1 INTRODUCTION The project to study, document and restore one of the most important monuments of the fortified city of Nicosia on Cyprus, the former church of St. Nicholas, represents one of the international restorations of excellence developed by CNR since 2005 and involves a group of some thirty research- ers and experts in architectural consolidation and restoration. This complex project, funded by the European Union through the United Nations development programme Partnership for the Future (UNDP-PFF), represents a particularly interesting case illustrating the problems of cur- rent restoration work that has the singular status of being halfway between an abandoned build- ing and an architectural ruin. The complex archi- tectural configuration of the building is a direct consequence not only of a series of alterations introduced for functional and stylistic reasons, but more frequently in the wake of calamities that led to the form and actual use of the building being modified, and for many years it served as a covered market or Bedestan. For many decades the monu- ment was closed and was ultimately forgotten by the population after the roof fell in the 1930s. Some following interventions for the safety of the structure for a long time rendered the ancient mon- umental spatiality of this extraordinary architec- ture completely illegible. The restoration work was