Acquaintance of the ancient timber structures

Ancient timber load-bearing structures are the ancestors of the modern framed structures therefore deserve special attention and careful conservation. The peculiarity of the members to undergo, when loaded, consistent deformations before ruptures occur, allowed in the past architects to understand the behaviour of the structures, evaluate their dimensioning criteria, express reliability judgements, get principles for the ideation of new structures. The acquaintance of an ancient timber structure is an extensive analysis, from its ideation to the present conditions, which include the general characters like paternity and chronology, configuration and loading, construction technique and process, innovations, and the peculiar characters as environmental factors, quality, defects and decay of the materials, failure, regimen of the loads. The acquaintance is principally based on direct observations followed by analytical determinations. The fundamental investigation methods are discussed and a protocol is suggested.