In 1271 when Marco Polo left Venice at the start of his journey to the land of the Kublai Khan, there was another Marco that traveled with the expedition.
Donald Trump is not the first man in history to build a strategic wall right across his country.
The best example of such a mammoth task is of course the Great Wall of China. In the book: ‘The Other Marco’, TOM visits a section of the wall near the Yellow River. He is naturally over awed by its size and being told that the wall stretches right across the country.
Building the Great Wall of China
Shih-haung-ti, the first Emperor of China started the great wall in 221BCE to stop the invading Turco-Mongolian hordes that inhabited the north-western steppes. Containing these mounted warriors that had united under the Hsiung-nu or Hun tribesmen was extremely difficult, as they had no permanent cities or towns that could be counter-attacked. They moved from place to place where they found water and grass and could swiftly retreat over the wide Mongolian plain after each successful raid. At best the Wall helped to kept the Huns out, but when the Ch’in dynasty collapsed in 206BCE they once more raided down to the Yellow River plains and established the Hun dynasty of Emperor Wu-ti.
The utility of the Great Wall as a means of defense has often been seriously questioned. In spite of its shortcomings, one has to marvel at the logistics in creating and managing this staggering project.
Emperor Shih-haung-ti sent General Meng-T’ien with an army of 300,000 laborers, plus many more convicts and political prisoners to rebuild and strengthen earlier fortifications. The Wall reportedly had 25,000 watchtowers within signaling distance of one another, each capable of accommodating 100 men. The Wall filled the gaps between these watchtowers.
It is said that the only man-made object that can be seen on earth from the moon is the Great Wall of China. During the Ming Dynasty [approx. 16th century] the wall was 5500 miles long [8852 kms]
The only other cross country barricade I was aware of was Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England, built by the Romans in the year 122 CE. Researching these projects I was amazed to find two more ‘walls’ mentioned in this category that I had never heard of.
Barely 160kms further north from Hadrian’s wall, another fortified barrier was constructed by the Romans 20 years later and became known as the Antonine Wall. It stretched from Edinburgh [Firth of Forth] to Glasgow [Firth of Clyde]. Live and learn!
Then the biggest surprise was the revelation of a Benin Wall that claims to have been 4 times longer than the Chinese Great Wall! Benin is in Nigeria and this earthen wall totaled an incredible 16,000kms long!
It is not a single barrier stretching that distance across the landscape, but a walled maze of interlocking squares and rectangles over a 6500sqkm area! I checked my reference to see if the Great Wall of China was indeed a quarter of 16000 i.e. 4000kms long. Confirming that the existing Chinese GW at 8852kms was shorter [but not 4 times] than the Benin wall, I was in for another surprise. The 8852km is the total defensive length not the actual wall length. One has to subtract 2232kms where natural obstructions like rivers and mountains exist and a further 360kms of trenches. We are now moving toward the 4:1 ratio, but not quite. The actual standing wall is therefore 6260kms long making it 2.5:1.
I concede that the supporters of the Benin wall must make attention grabbing claims, but asserting that it was 4 times longer than its Chinese counter-part, smacks of deception!
One can take this ‘mine is longer than yours’ claim further by comparing apples with apples. The Benin wall was destroyed by the British and very little of it exists any longer. Archaeological surveys in China have uncovered ancient Great Wall foundations where the wall no longer exist either, and have come up with a total distance of 21,197kms! Let’s deduct the mountains, rivers and trenches from this figure and we arrive at the sum of the existing walls + foundations of walls no longer standing, to give us 18,606kms. The Great Wall is therefore 2606kms longer than the Benin wall.
If anyone would like you check my figures, I would appreciate it, as I was not the brightest button in the Arithmetic class.
While we are talking about walls, let’s have a quick peek at walled cities.
The concept of building a surrounding defensive wall to protect a city or town from potential aggressors is not new. Walled cities and fortresses, some dating back as far back as 3500 BCE and before that, are dotted all over the world. The ancient cities of Uruk in Mesopotamia, Jericho and Babylon existed behind massive walls. So did Mundigak [2500 BCE] in Afghanistan.
Take a look on Google Images at: The Walls of the Ark of Bukara.
The Derawar fort in Bahawlpur, Pakistan.
The walled city of Avila, Spain.
I have chosen these three cities at random, but there are many more examples of defensive walls around the world. One cannot help being impressed by the engineering skills and sheer effort that was expended in creating these monuments to man’s ingenuity. Of course, the primary reason behind building walls was not only to show off man’s inventiveness, but fear! The bigger the threat, the bigger the fear and hence, the bigger the wall.
It is interesting to note that Venice, where ‘The Other Marco story’ starts, could not build defensive walls on the soft marshes. They depended on their water barrier to protect them, but did build-up an effective fleet of warships as a mobile defensive wall, and to look after their commercial interests on the surrounding Adriatic and Mediterranean seas.
My apology
Sorry about this posting being 4 weeks overdue. I could give you a string of excuses to justify my tardiness, but I won’t! Suffice it to say that I dropped one of the balls I was juggling, and had to ask young Jason to pick it up and get me started all over again. Thanks Jason.
Would also like to thank Trevor for sorting out the ‘comments section’ so that the text no longer sits on top of each other.
As this is TOM #5, the monsters will be back in #6. [Remember, even numbered postings for dragons!] The title of the #6 dragon is: The Rex T Skunk with the serpentile tail. In less than two weeks – promise!
Now I have seen #5 in print – well done Lawrence. I need a high wall – smooth sides – about 20m high – to keep the monkeys out. They are a curse and right now every mother seems to have a baby around her tummy.