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TIL the Great Wall of China wasn't built as one continuous wall but as overlapping fortresses
I was reading a paper from 2022 about Ming dynasty defenses and it said most of the wall sections were built miles apart with gaps between them. Has anyone else run into archaeological facts that totally flipped what they thought they knew from school?
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nancy35123d ago
The 2022 paper you mentioned is solid, but I'd argue the "overlapping fortresses" idea still supports the wall being a real defensive system, just not the neat line we picture. Those gaps were often filled with natural barriers like cliffs and rivers that made continuous walls pointless. Take it with a grain of salt, but a lot of those sections did connect via signal towers and patrol routes, so calling them disconnected forts feels a bit harsh.
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morgan_butler23d ago
...and here I was, all proud I could say I walked on the Great Wall of China during a school trip. Turns out I probably walked on a really long fort that didn't connect to anything else. Makes you wonder what other "facts" I've been bragging about that are just a little too tidy. I mean, I still think the pyramids are tombs, but I'm half-expecting to find out they were actually grain silos.
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