07-09-2006, 05:03 PM
Quote:D B Campbell:y24angpc Wrote:As I pointed out many years ago (Historia 38, 1989, 371-6, an article that seems to have been universally ignored), the Chinese frontier wall built during the reign of Wu-Ti (c. 100 BC) -- which modern scholars call the Tun-huang limes -- was no "Great Wall of China". Sir Aurel Stein's excavations there revealed a simple earthwork barrier covering a chain of detached watch-towers.
CJ Peers, Imperial Chinese Armies (1) 200 BC - AD 589 Osprey, p.17 (trustworthy source, I hope, hehe) on the Han fortifications from the Ordos region to Kansu:
Quote:Wall building was a fairly quick and simple operation - a single man was said to be able to erect 18 feet of rampart per month - and the walls were probably no more than low earth banks, using loose stones or even bundled twigs as a core, which acted more as boundary markers and lookout posts than as serious fortifications. Rectangular brick watchtowers were placed at intervals of slightly less than a mile, and banks of raked sand outside the defences were used to reveal any nocturnal incursions. A system of signalling between the towers by means of red and white flags, smoke or bonfires was in operation by about 160 BC.
On the other hand, I have seen in more than one serious publication stone walls specifically dated to the Qin and Han era, lines of stone 3-4 meter high with no battlements. Still impressive, but a far cry from the Ming wall, and also of less sophisticated workmanship than the Hadrian's wall since the sections depicted showed stones which were are at best crudely worked without any mortar.
The signalling system is kind of more interesting, since surviving records suggest that it must have been very professionally managed.
The thing was probably that the Ch'in and the Han used whatever materials were available: rammed earth walls (also used commonly for civilian architecture, one of the reasons early Chinese dynasties left very little in terms of architectural remains) mostly, stone where feasible. And yes, the Wall we know is a 16th century edifice.
A propos wall systems, I am currently reading "Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC" by William J. Hamblin (Routledge 2006). In it, I stumbled upon a description of a wall system constructed on the orders of Shusin, a king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, around 2034 BC. This wall was about 270 km. long and was constructed between Euphrates and Tigris to keep Amorite nomads out of central and southern Mesopotamia. The wall also had a name: "It keeps the Tidnum (Amorite tribal confederacy) at a distance".
Shusin's grandfather, King Shulgi, had also ordered the construction of a wall to keep highland nomads at bay, called "The Wall Facing the Highland".
Again, similar problems, similar solutions...
Andreas Baede
