Preliminary Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of the Hittite Adobe Wall in Arslantepe (Turkey)

This study examines the preliminary seismic vulnerability assessment of a Hittite adobe urban wall, which was damaged during the 2023 Turkish earthquake. The wall, dating back to the first millennium BCE, is located at the UNESCO archaeological site of Arslantepe in Eastern Turkey. It ex-tends for approximately 30 m in length, has an average thickness of 4.0 m and a height ranging between 2.0 and 3.0 m. The wall is made of adobe blocks, measuring around 40 × 40 cm and 8-10 cm in thickness. A 2D mac-ro-block nonlinear finite element model was developed to analyze the seis-mic response of the wall considering the two earthquakes registered on Feb-ruary 6th 2023 in Turkey. The assessment followed a two-stage procedure: (i) a nonlinear quasi-static analysis to predict the stress state resulting from gravitational loads, and (ii) a nonlinear dynamic analysis to evaluate the lateral capacity and failure mechanisms induced by progressively increasing ground acceleration. The results show that if an earthquake with an intensi-ty equal to 54% of the strongest shock registered on February 6th, 2023 oc-curs, the Hittite adobe walls will collapse.