People want to feel safe and one way they do that is to build walls. The most obvious walls protect us from the elements. It doesn’t matter if you’re living in a Mongolian yurt made with of animal hides and felt, a modern concrete and glass high rise, or anything in between. All of our shelters utilize walls. Like many things walls are a multi-purpose technology. In addition to keeping things out they also keep things in. Zoos, schools, and prisons (admittedly an odd thought progression) immediately come to mind.
With the advent of civilization and the creation of towns and cities wall building assumed a larger protective role. Many early towns grew along rivers. While the floodwaters deposited valuable nutrients for their crops, they also threatened to inundate the towns. The simple solution was to build a wall. In addition to natural threats, the growth of towns also spurred the rise of war. It didn’t take a military genius to figure out that it was easier to defend a town from the safety of a wall.
Wall Highlights
c8000 BC Jericho is the first known town encircled by a wall.
c1860 BC Egyptian fortress of Buhen features a moat and drawbridges.
c1200 BC Greeks besiege the walled city of Troy for ten years.
c1000 BC Assyrians & Babylonians build siege towers to attack walled cities.
220-206 BC Qin Shi Huang builds the first iteration of the Great Wall of China. Built primarily of rammed earth, little remains and no maps of its course exist.
122-128 Hadrian’s wall separating Roman Britain from Scotland. Most of the wall is gone (used by farmers & road-builders) large sections can still be visited.
9th & 10th Centuries the rise of feudalism and frequent raids (Magyars, Vikings, Muslims) lead to increased castle building and town fortification in Europe. The centuries long trend leaves much of Europe dotted with castles and town walls.
14th Century Chinese Ming Dynasty revives the Great Wall concept. The Ming wall ran nearly 5,500 miles and included 25,000 defensive towers. This is the wall tourists visit today.
1453 Invented by the Chinese (first verified use in 1326) the Ottoman armies use 55 Hungarian cannons to breach the ‘impenetrable’ walls of Constantinople ending the Byzantine Empire.
1961-1989 Berlin Wall was built by the East German government to both keep their citizens in and to keep westerners out. The opening of ‘the wall’ in November 1989 signaled the beginning of the end of communist Germany.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the number of border fences and walls has more than quadrupled from 16 to 65 (According to Quebec University expert Elisabeth Vallet). The topic of walls has even become a major theme in the US presidential election. With that in mind today’s featured map shows the main walled borders.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen