It has become an essential concern to provide proper protection against radiation due to the rapid development in the use and applications of ionizing radiation in various scientific and industrial fields over the past few decades on marble tile and stone. Time, distance, and shielding are the three primary measures that are typically applied in the process of protecting oneself from radiation. Shielding is the most essential of the three approaches, and in this context, the use of shielding materials becomes important. As a result, radiation shielding properties, which may be found in residential and non-residential structures, have attracted much attention as a preventative measure. 
Due to the fact that humans spend the majority of their time indoors, it is essential to have an understanding of how various building materials block gamma radiation in order to provide a dependable method for reducing radiation exposure. Lead and iron are examples of dense materials that have high atomic numbers and possess the most effective shielding properties. These properties help to reduce the amount of ionizing radiation that the general population is exposed to. However, due to the long lifespan and high cost of these materials, they are not suitable for use in the construction of buildings in their natural state. As a consequence of this, less efficient shielding materials, including sand, bricks, cement, and concrete, are frequently utilized. Nevertheless, by installing an external wall covering, the radiation shielding properties of these materials could be greatly increased. When selecting a material for use as a directly adherent cladding material for exterior walls, the capability of shielding gamma rays must be taken into consideration. This is the most suited material. 
Natural marble is a well-liked option for the facade of buildings in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. It is utilized for a variety of construction projects and serves both functional and aesthetic reasons. Marble is a metamorphic rock predominantly made up of crystalline forms of the minerals calcite (calcium carbonate; CaCO3) and dolomite. Marble is a very hard stone (magnesium carbonate; MgCO3). In most cases, marble stone will have other components, the proportions of which will vary substantially depending on the minerals and impurities that were present in the limestone throughout the process of recrystallization. As can be seen in Figure 1, natural marbles of a wide variety of forms and colors are frequently used for the external cladding of buildings in Riyadh. This is due to the material's adaptability, longevity, and appealing appearance. A wall constructed of bricks or concrete supports natural marble tiles utilized on the building's exterior. Because of this, it is interesting to study the shielding properties of this particular building pattern and investigate how the additional reduction of gamma radiation from terrestrial and cosmic sources is affected by using marble tiles in comparison to a conventional building pattern that only uses ordinary concrete walls. 
Specifically, using marble tiles is interesting to investigate how the additional reduction of gamma radiation from terrestrial and cosmic sources is affected. The characteristics that describe a material's energy absorption can provide an approximation of that material's effectiveness as a shield. There have only been a few of research conducted in Saudi Arabia regarding the radioactivity concentration of gamma-ray emitters and the attenuation effects of construction and building materials. None of this research has focused on determining the level of radiation protection that marble tiles can offer. Therefore, it is beneficial to take into account the shielding capacity of the cladding facades against ionizing radiation. As a result, it would be beneficial to conduct an experimental inquiry with the goal of building a database for the attenuation of gamma rays in a marble cladding system. In this study, nine varieties of popular natural marble tiles made locally in Riyadh city or imported from different countries were tested as shielding materials against gamma radiation. These tiles were either produced locally in Riyadh city or imported from different countries. 
In order to evaluate the efficacy of several kinds of natural marble as a shielding material, the purpose of this research is to identify critical energy-absorption properties shared by these materials. In order to accomplish this goal, linear attenuation coefficients (l) have been determined using a narrow beam geometry. Additionally, the mass attenuation coefficient (m), transmission factor (TF), and half-value layer (HVL) of the investigated marbles have been calculated in the energy range of 59.5–1332.5 keV gamma photon energy. The measured values were compared with those of calcite and lead, and they were used in an experiment to evaluate the natural marble's ability to filter gamma radiation from its surroundings. Experiments were carried out in this work to investigate the gamma-ray attenuation effects of nine distinct varieties of natural marble that were utilized as tiles for external wall cladding in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The energy range for the investigations was from 59.5 to 1469 keV. Several kinds of marble were tested for their shielding capabilities using linear and mass attenuation coefficients, transmission factor (TF), and half-value layer (HVL). The results were compared to the calcite results that were derived using WinXCom. The results of the experiments demonstrated that HVL made an accurate determination of the level of shielding provided by the samples that were studied. Carrara marble, which comes from Italy, has the best shielding performance against gamma radiation out of all of the samples that were looked into. 
It was determined that using this kind of marble as a cladding material for the exterior walls of a structure provides 35% and 12% better attenuation than using concrete walls for gamma radiation with 186 keV and 1460 keV respectively. Carrara marble exhibited a shielding thickness of 9.24 g cm2 when exposed to gamma rays with a frequency of 186 keV, which is approximately eight times more massive than the lead of a similar thickness; however, it acts approximately similarly to lead when exposed to gamma rays with a frequency of 1460 keV. At the same time, this marble demonstrated a lighter weight than lead by a factor of around 24 percentage points, which enables it to function as an efficient and cost-effective shield against strong gamma radiation.
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