Misplaced Pages

#713286

82-629: The Moorish Wall , also known as the Philip II Wall and formerly the Muralla de San Reymondo (English: St. Raymond's Wall ) is a defensive curtain wall built in the 16th century that formed part of the southern fortifications of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar . It was completed by 1575. The wall ran from the top of a steep cliff above the lower section of the Charles V Wall up

164-537: A Qing incursion in 1638. By 1641, there were ten bastion forts in the county. Before bastion forts could spread any further, the Ming dynasty fell in 1644, and they were largely forgotten as the Qing dynasty was on the offensive most of the time and had no use for them. In the wake of city growth and the ensuing change of defensive strategy, focusing more on the defense of forts around cities, many city walls were demolished. Also,

246-501: A bit more than a third the width of a major wall in China. According to Philo the width of a wall had to be 4.5 metres (15 ft) thick to be able to withstand ancient (non-gunpowder) siege engines. European walls of the 1200s and 1300s could reach the Roman equivalents but rarely exceeded them in length, width, and height, remaining around 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) thick. When referring to

328-413: A centralised authority, the creation of social classes, and the centralisation of political power away from families and households. Many of Childe’s criteria are still widely recognised as key milestones in the development of early complex societies, and his basic model can still be discerned within most modern accounts of the development of the earliest cities. More modern archaeological studies discuss

410-579: A city fully enclosed by walls was not fully developed in Southeast Asia until the arrival of Europeans. However, Burma serves an exception, as they had a longer tradition of fortified walled towns; towns in Burma had city walls by 1566. Besides that, Rangoon in 1755 had stockades made of teak logs on a ground rampart . The city was fortified with six city gates with each gate flanked by massive brick towers. In other areas of Southeast Asia, city walls spread in

492-484: A communal lifestyle”. The Tower may also have been an indication of power struggles within the community, as an individual or a group may have “exploited the primeval fears of the residents and persuaded them to build it”. There is also evidence of human violence at the site, as the skeletons of twelve people apparently killed in a fight or riot have been found within the tower. Thus, despite new technologies in domestication, agriculture and architecture, social organisation

574-486: A cost benefit hypothesis, where the Ming recognized the highly resistant nature of their walls to structural damage, and could not imagine any affordable development of the guns available to them at the time to be capable of breaching said walls. Even as late as the 1490s a Florentine diplomat considered the French claim that "their artillery is capable of creating a breach in a wall of eight feet in thickness" to be ridiculous and

656-737: A maximum thickness of 43 metres and an average thickness of 20–30 metres. Ming prefectural and provincial capital walls were 10 to 20 metres (33 to 66 ft) thick at the base and 5 to 10 metres (16 to 33 ft) at the top. In Europe the height of wall construction was reached under the Roman Empire , whose walls often reached 10 metres (33 ft) in height, the same as many Chinese city walls, but were only 1.5 to 2.5 metres (4 ft 11 in to 8 ft 2 in) thick. Rome's Servian Walls reached 3.6 and 4 metres (12 and 13 ft) in thickness and 6 to 10 metres (20 to 33 ft) in height. Other fortifications also reached these specifications across

738-494: A more flexible and complex trajectory to urbanisation. Alternatively, a number of proto-urban population centres such as Tell Brak in Northern Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. can be considered "successful experiments" that adopted new social and political institutions to mitigate internal conflicts. These sites anticipate the administrative practices of Southern Mesopotamian city-states such as Uruk , such as

820-423: A purely military and defensive purpose, towers also played a representative and artistic role in the conception of a fortified complex. The architecture of the city thus competed with that of the castle of the noblemen and city walls were often a manifestation of the pride of a particular city. Urban areas outside the city walls, so-called Vorstädte , were often enclosed by their own set of walls and integrated into

902-422: A response to gunpowder artillery, European fortifications began displaying architectural principles such as lower and thicker walls in the mid-1400s. Cannon towers were built with artillery rooms where cannons could discharge fire from slits in the walls. However, this proved problematic as the slow rate of fire, reverberating concussions, and noxious fumes produced greatly hindered defenders. Gun towers also limited

SECTION 10

#1732884312714

984-543: A single "embassy district", enclosed by a fortified complex with walls and towers – this usually occurs in regions where the embassies run a high risk of being target of attacks. An early example of such a compound was the Legation Quarter in Beijing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of these modern city walls are made of steel and concrete. Vertical concrete plates are put together so as to allow

1066-472: A symbol of political power , and may have also served to bind commoners emotionally to their city and to their ruler through the act of construction . As opposed to the popular view of the use of slave labour to construct ancient monuments, much of the labour was provided by free commoners as part of their tax requirements. An alternative explanation of the urbanisation process suggests that changes in social relations may not have been as revolutionary in

1148-472: A very thick wall in medieval Europe, what is usually meant is a wall of 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) in width, which would have been considered thin in a Chinese context. There are some exceptions such as the Hillfort of Otzenhausen , a Celtic ringfort with a thickness of 40 metres (130 ft) in some parts, but Celtic fort-building practices died out in the early medieval period. Andrade goes on to note that

1230-578: Is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of planning and centralized rule . The term mega-sites is also used. While the precise classification of many sites considered proto-cities is ambiguous and subject to considerable debate, common examples include sites of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture and following cultures in the Fertile Crescent such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük , sites of

1312-442: Is notoriously hard to define”. Childe’s 1950 concept of the “Urban Revolution” remains the prevailing framework for understanding the origins of cities, and lists ten criteria which differentiate Neolithic villages from the first “proper” cities. Among other features, the most enduring of Childe’s criteria include: a large and dense settlement population, the specialisation of labour, the concentration of an agricultural surplus by

1394-727: Is the Romanian Bran Castle , which was intended to protect nearby Kronstadt (today's Braşov ). The city walls were often connected to the fortifications of hill castles via additional walls. Thus the defenses were made up of city and castle fortifications taken together. Several examples of this are preserved, for example in Germany Hirschhorn on the Neckar, Königsberg and Pappenheim , Franken, Burghausen in Oberbayern and many more. A few castles were more directly incorporated into

1476-810: The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in Southeast Europe, and of the Ubaid period in Mesopotamia . These sites pre-date the Mesopotamian city-states of the Uruk period that mark the development of the first indisputable urban settlements, with the emergence of cities such as Uruk at the end of the Fourth Millennium, B.C. The emergence of cities from proto-urban settlements is a non-linear development that demonstrates

1558-457: The Genoese engineer Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino to continue the improvements to Gibraltar's fortifications. El Fratino decided that the traverse should be abandoned, and that the work already completed on Calvi's zigzag wall should be demolished. Instead, he believed an upper wall should continue the line of the lower wall from the top of the cliff to the crest of The Rock. El Fratino's upper wall

1640-508: The Indus floodplain. Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets. The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji were clustered behind massive stone flood dykes and defensive walls, for neighboring communities quarreled constantly about the control of prime agricultural land. Mundigak ( c.  2500   BC ) in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks. The concept of

1722-549: The Neolithic Revolution . The label of a proto-city is applied to Neolithic mega-sites that are large and population-dense for their time but lack most other characteristics that are found in later urban settlements such as those of the Mesopotamian city-states in the 4th Millennium B.C. These later urban sites are commonly distinguished by a dense, stratified population alongside a level of organisation that facilitated

SECTION 20

#1732884312714

1804-732: The Tang dynasty (618–907   AD). Sections of the Great Wall had been built prior to the Qin dynasty (221–207   BC) and subsequently connected and fortified during the Qin dynasty, although its present form was mostly an engineering feat and remodeling of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644   AD). The large walls of Pingyao serve as one example. Likewise, the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in

1886-509: The proto-city of Jericho in the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium   BC. The earliest known town wall in Europe is of Solnitsata , built in the 6th or 5th millennium BC. The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples and defensive walls. Babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, especially as a result of

1968-446: The 16th and 17th century along with the rapid growth of cities in this period as a need to defend against European naval attack. Ayutthaya built its walls in 1550 and Banten , Jepara , Tuban and Surabaya all had theirs by 1600; while Makassar had theirs by 1634. A sea wall was the main defense for Gelgel . For cities that did not have city walls, the least it would have had was a stockaded citadel . This wooden walled area housed

2050-671: The 16th century. The bastion and star fort was developed in Italy, where the Florentine engineer Giuliano da Sangallo (1445–1516) compiled a comprehensive defensive plan using the geometric bastion and full trace italienne that became widespread in Europe. The main distinguishing features of the star fort were its angle bastions, each placed to support their neighbor with lethal crossfire, covering all angles, making them extremely difficult to engage with and attack. Angle bastions consisted of two faces and two flanks. Artillery positions positioned at

2132-486: The 19th century, less emphasis was placed on preserving the fortifications for the sake of their architectural or historical value – on the one hand, complete fortifications were restored ( Carcassonne ), on the other hand many structures were demolished in an effort to modernize the cities. One exception to this is the "monument preservation" law by the Bavarian King Ludwig I of Bavaria , which led to

2214-563: The French "braggarts by nature". Very rarely did cannons blast breaches in city walls in Chinese warfare. This may have been partly due to cultural tradition. Famous military commanders such as Sun Tzu and Zheng Zhilong recommended not to directly attack cities and storm their walls. Even when direct assaults were made with cannons, it was usually by focusing on the gates rather than the walls. There were instances where cannons were used against walled fortifications, such as by Koxinga , but only in

2296-560: The Moorish and Charles the Vth's walls, is the signal-house; whence the guard, on a serene and clear day, have almost an unbounded view of the Mediterranean... Notes Citations Sources Defensive wall Existing ancient walls are almost always masonry structures, although brick and timber-built variants are also known. Depending on the topography of the area surrounding the city or

2378-739: The ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its ' cyclopean ' walls). In classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus . Exceptions were few, but neither ancient Sparta nor ancient Rome had walls for a long time, choosing to rely on their militaries for defense instead. Initially, these fortifications were simple constructions of wood and earth, which were later replaced by mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar . The Romans later fortified their cities with massive, mortar-bound stone walls. Among these are

2460-484: The building of public works, the redistribution of food surpluses and raids into surrounding areas. In contrast, proto-urban sites such as Çatalhöyük are population dense but lack clear signs of central control and social stratification, such as large public works . Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Jericho was the site of a large settlement with a dense population as early as the Ninth Millennium BC, with estimates of

2542-648: The building program of Nebuchadnezzar , who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate . The Persians built defensive walls to protect their territories, notably the Derbent Wall and the Great Wall of Gorgan built on the either sides of the Caspian Sea against nomadic nations. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were also fortified. By about 3500   BC, hundreds of small farming villages dotted

Moorish Wall - Misplaced Pages Continue

2624-532: The case of small villages. During Koxinga's career, there is only one recorded case of capturing a settlement by bombarding its walls: the siege of Taizhou in 1658. In 1662, the Dutch found that bombarding the walls of a town in Fujian Province had no effect and they focused on the gates instead just as in Chinese warfare. In 1841, a 74-gun British warship bombarded a Chinese coastal fort near Guangzhou and found that it

2706-416: The circumvention of the city, through which many important trade routes passed, thus ensuring that tolls were paid when the caravans passed through the city gates, and that the local market was visited by the trade caravans. Furthermore, additional signaling and observation towers were frequently built outside the city, and were sometimes fortified in a castle-like fashion. The border of the area of influence of

2788-475: The city was often partially or fully defended by elaborate ditches, walls and hedges. The crossing points were usually guarded by gates or gate houses. These defenses were regularly checked by riders, who often also served as the gate keepers. Long stretches of these defenses can still be seen to this day, and even some gates are still intact. To further protect their territory, rich cities also established castles in their area of influence. An example of this practice

2870-540: The cliff was never built. Thus the Moorish Wall became a fallback defensive line. A 1786 book described the defenses as follows: Above the precipice, an old Moorish wall is continued to the ridge of The Rock; in front of which a curtain with loop-holes and redans (built in the reign of the Emperor Charles V, and called after his name) extends to the top, effectually cutting off all communication in that quarter. Between

2952-752: The complex culture and longevity of the settlement suggests different methods of achieving social cohesion. The Cucuteni-Trypillia culture (4100-3400 B.C.) is notable for creating the largest settlements in south-eastern Europe during the Neolithic - Eneolithic that range between 100 and 340 ha. Owing to their size, the mega-sites created by the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture is classified by some as proto-cities. The Cucuteni-Trypillian site of Nebelivka in Ukraine features approximately 1500 structures organised into two concentric circles with inner streets that separate

3034-525: The construction of the "European Rampart" alongside its border with Russia to be able to successfully apply for a visa-free movement with the European Union. At its simplest, a defensive wall consists of a wall enclosure and its gates. For the most part, the top of the walls were accessible, with the outside of the walls having tall parapets with embrasures or merlons . North of the Alps, this passageway at

3116-527: The defense of the city. These areas were often inhabited by the poorer population and held the "noxious trades". In many cities, a new wall was built once the city had grown outside of the old wall. This can often still be seen in the layout of the city, for example in Nördlingen , and sometimes even a few of the old gate towers are preserved, such as the white tower in Nuremberg . Additional constructions prevented

3198-434: The defensive strategy of the city (e.g. Nuremberg , Zons , Carcassonne ), or the cities were directly outside the castle as a sort of "pre-castle" (Coucy-le-Chateau, Conwy and others). Larger cities often had multiple stewards – for example Augsburg was divided into a Reichstadt and a clerical city. These different parts were often separated by their own fortifications. Proto-city A proto-city

3280-512: The development of new social and political institutions in a sedentary population. It is thus ambiguous if the sites of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture represent an urbanisation process. The development of cities from proto-urban sites was not a linear progression in most cases. Rather, proto-cities are defined as "early experiments" in high-density living that "did not develop further", particularly in their level of population, suggesting

3362-419: The earliest written documents ( c.  3300 BC ) and also the largest area of public buildings from the fourth millennium B.C., making it among the most significant of the early settlements that archeologists classify as cities. The rise of urban settlements such as Uruk is often attributed to a "revolution" in social relations where - among other factors - the complex division of labour and

Moorish Wall - Misplaced Pages Continue

3444-474: The earliest cities, where kinship may not have been replaced, but rather redefined to incorporate entire settlements and cities. The temples and palaces of the Mesopotamian city-states were run like households, using household terminologies such as "father", "son" and "servant". Houses in the village settlements of the fifth millennium B.C. Ubaid Period in Mesopotamia shared the same layout with temples both in

3526-417: The early Middle Ages also saw the creation of some towns built around castles. These cities were only rarely protected by simple stone walls and more usually by a combination of both walls and ditches . From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were founded all across Europe, which very often obtained the right of fortification soon afterwards. Several medieval town walls have survived into

3608-458: The early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor . According to Tonio Andrade , the immense thickness of Chinese city walls prevented larger cannons from being developed, since even industrial era artillery had trouble breaching Chinese walls. Eupseongs (Hangul: 읍성), 'city fortresses', which served both military and administrative functions, have been constructed since the time of Silla until

3690-455: The empire, but all these paled in comparison to contemporary Chinese walls, which could reach a thickness of 20 metres (66 ft) at the base in extreme cases. Even the walls of Constantinople which have been described as "the most famous and complicated system of defence in the civilized world," could not match up to a major Chinese city wall. Had both the outer and inner walls of Constantinople been combined they would have only reached roughly

3772-583: The end of the Joseon dynasty . Throughout the period of the Joseon dynasty eupseongs were modified and renovated, and new eupseongs were built, but in 1910 Japan (the occupying power of Korea) issued an order for their demolition, resulting in most being destroyed. Studies of the ruins and reconstructions of the ancient city walls are currently being undertaken at some sites. In ancient Greece , large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece , such as

3854-623: The energy of artillery shots. Walls were constructed using wooden frameworks which were filled with layers of earth tamped down to a highly compact state, and once that was completed the frameworks were removed for use in the next wall section. Starting from the Song dynasty these walls were improved with an outer layer of bricks or stone to prevent erosion, and during the Ming, earthworks were interspersed with stone and rubble. Most Chinese walls were also sloped rather than vertical to better deflect projectile energy. The defensive response to cannon in Europe

3936-446: The first cities may have been somewhat accidental if ambitious household heads trying to expand their social connections unintentionally grew their settlement by attracting new followers, even if they originally aimed to sustain and expand their own household. The precise definition of what constitutes a proto-urban, urban or rural settlement has been a source of ambiguity and debate. As noted by V. Gordon Childe , “The concept of ‘city’

4018-404: The flanks could fire parallel into the opposite bastion's line of fire, thus providing two lines of cover fire against an armed assault on the wall, and preventing mining parties from finding refuge. Meanwhile, artillery positioned on the bastion platform could fire frontally from the two faces, also providing overlapping fire with the opposite bastion. Overlapping mutually supporting defensive fire

4100-508: The form or aesthetics of the City, or any particular city”, rather, it “combined urbanism and the state in a single sequence and permitted the uncritical evaluation of this particular association”. Another criticism of the Childean approach has been its reliance on a Eurocentric framework with questionable validity on a global scale, ignoring site and cultural-specific details and ultimately constituting

4182-436: The invention of gunpowder rendered walls less effective, as siege cannons could then be used to blast through walls, allowing armies to simply march through. Today, the presence of former city fortifications can often only be deduced from the presence of ditches, ring roads or parks. Furthermore, some street names hint at the presence of fortifications in times past, for example when words such as "wall" or "glacis" occur. In

SECTION 50

#1732884312714

4264-790: The largely extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople , together with partial remains elsewhere. These are mostly city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln . In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements which the Romans called oppida , whose walls seem partially influenced by those built in the Mediterranean. The fortifications were continuously expanded and improved. Apart from these,

4346-457: The least space in between them, and are rooted firmly in the ground. The top of the wall is often protruding and beset with barbed wire in order to make climbing them more difficult. These walls are usually built in straight lines and covered by watchtowers at the corners. Double walls with an interstitial "zone of fire", as the former Berlin Wall had, are now rare. In September 2014, Ukraine announced

4428-420: The medieval period and beyond in certain parts of Europe. Simpler defensive walls of earth or stone, thrown up around hillforts , ringworks , early castles and the like, tend to be referred to as ramparts or banks. From very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer ( Mesopotamia ) is one of the world's oldest known walled cities. Before that,

4510-597: The modern age, such as the walled towns of Austria , walls of Tallinn , or the town walls of York and Canterbury in England, as well as Nordlingen , Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany. In Spain, Avila and Tossa del Mar hosts surviving medieval walls while Lugo has an intact Roman wall. The founding of urban centers was an important means of territorial expansion and many cities, especially in central and eastern Europe, were founded for this purpose during

4592-507: The natives experienced great difficulty in uprooting European invaders. In China, Sun Yuanhua advocated for the construction of angled bastion forts in his Xifashenji so that their cannons could better support each other. The officials Han Yun and Han Lin noted that cannons on square forts could not support each side as well as bastion forts. Their efforts to construct bastion forts, and their results, were limited. Ma Weicheng built two bastion forts in his home county, which helped fend off

4674-658: The nearly complete preservation of many monuments such as the Rothenburg ob der Tauber , Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl . The countless small fortified towns in the Franconia region were also preserved as a consequence of this edict. Walls and fortified wall structures were still built in the modern era. They did not, however, have the original purpose of being a structure able to resist a prolonged siege or bombardment. Modern examples of defensive walls include: Additionally, in some countries, different embassies may be grouped together in

4756-462: The oldest known monumental building, the Tower of Jericho : a large stone tower 8m high and built c.  8000 BC The Tower required substantial communal effort to build, with an estimated 10,400 working days invested in the construction of the tower. It may have functioned as part of a fortification system, a flood-detection system, or as a symbolic monument to “motivate people to take part in

4838-400: The period of Eastern settlement . These cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and large market spaces. The fortifications of these settlements were continuously improved to reflect the current level of military development. While gunpowder and cannons were invented in China, China never developed wall breaking artillery to the same extent as other parts of the world. Part of

4920-407: The production of an agricultural surplus resulted in the development of social classes and ultimately, the centralisation of power around key institutions such as a ruler or other elements of government. In the first cities and states, this shifted societal relations from being based on kinship to being based on residence or class. Monumental architecture - attributed to the state - served as

5002-448: The proto-urban settlement at Tell Brak and in the city of Uruk in the fourth millennium B.C; a common resident of Uruk would still be able to recognise a temple as a house, albeit different in scale and grandeur. Thus, through the course of the fourth millennium B.C., households might have been replaced not by the state, but rather by a metaphorical household that spanned an entire city rather than just an immediate family. The formation of

SECTION 60

#1732884312714

5084-504: The reason is probably because Chinese walls were already highly resistant to artillery and discouraged increasing the size of cannons. In the mid-twentieth century a European expert in fortification commented on their immensity: "in China ... the principal towns are surrounded to the present day by walls so substantial, lofty, and formidable that the medieval fortifications of Europe are puny in comparison." Chinese walls were thick. The eastern wall of Ancient Linzi , established in 859 BC, had

5166-439: The region during prior centuries. The city can be viewed as “the culmination of a series of increasingly successful experiments in settlement nucleation”. Extremely large in scale (250 ha, twice the size of Tell Brak), Uruk was a centre of religious and political power, with large, well-decorated households and temples indicating a political and religious elite. As the most prominent of the early Mesopotamian cities, Uruk has yielded

5248-509: The repetition of similar units (buildings)". Individual houses were largely self-sufficient in function, lacking specialisation. For example, there were no assigned builders of houses, and the bricks used to build them differed in composition and shape. There is some evidence of long-distance trade, with possible value-added production occurring with imports of obsidian from Cappadocia , 170 km away. The site has little evidence of significant social stratification or centralised authority, yet

5330-614: The royal citadel or aristocratic compounds such as in Surakarta and Aceh . Large rammed earth walls were built in ancient China since the Shang dynasty ( c.  1600 –1050   BC), as the capital at ancient Ao had enormous walls built in this fashion (see siege for more info). Although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States (481–221   BC), mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until

5412-483: The settlement into 14 quarters and over 140 neighbourhoods. Despite this layout suggesting planning from a central authority, individual neighbourhoods feature a high degree of variability, and the site is undistinguishable from preceding or contemporary settlements in terms of economy and trade . Social tensions and population pressures resulting from the dense settlements of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture may have instead been resolved by constant migration as opposed to

5494-446: The settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain such as rivers or coastlines may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective. Walls may only be crossed by entering the appropriate city gate and are often supplemented with towers. The practice of building these massive walls, though having its origins in prehistory, was refined during the rise of city-states , and energetic wall-building continued into

5576-453: The settlement's population ranging from 2000-3000 to only 200-300. Its proximity to fresh water from the spring at Ain es-Sultan facilitated the early development of animal husbandry and agriculture , making the site among the most advanced centres of the Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent . The settlement was built over an area of 2 or 3 ha, and its most notable features include stone walls 3m wide and 4m tall, as well as

5658-526: The size and number of cannon placements because the rooms could only be built so big. Notable surviving artillery towers include a seven layer defensive structure built in 1480 at Fougères in Brittany , and a four layer tower built in 1479 at Querfurth in Saxony. The star fort, also known as the bastion fort, trace italienne , or renaissance fortress, was a style of fortification that became popular in Europe during

5740-616: The slope of the Rock of Gibraltar to its crest, north of the upper section of the Charles V Wall and is now within the Upper Rock Nature Reserve . In September 1540 an Ottoman force commanded by Barbarossa attacked Gibraltar and took more than seventy prisoners as slaves. The Charles V Wall, originally called the Muralla de San Benito (English: St. Benedict's Wall ), was built in 1540 to help defend The Rock against further attacks from

5822-496: The south. Starting around 1552 the Italian military engineer Giovanni Battista Calvi made improvements to the wall. Calvi designed a wall that ran west–east in a straight line from the coast for about 280 metres (920 ft) until it reached a precipice. A traverse ran north–south along the top of the cliff, and then a zigzag wall ran up to the crest of The Rock. Philip II of Spain succeeded Charles V in 1558, and commissioned

5904-600: The top of the walls occasionally had a roof. In addition to this, many different enhancements were made over the course of the centuries: The defensive towers of west and south European fortifications in the Middle Ages were often very regularly and uniformly constructed (cf. Ávila , Provins ), whereas Central European city walls tend to show a variety of different styles. In these cases the gate and wall towers often reach up to considerable heights, and gates equipped with two towers on either side are much rarer. Apart from having

5986-467: The use of seals to denote ownership or control. At Tell Brak, a stamp sealing with a motif of a lion suggests the authority of a senior official; in later periods Mesopotamians considered the lion a symbol of kingship. By the end of the fourth millennium B.C., the emergence of the city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia reflected the social, cultural and political developments of proto-cities in

6068-452: The varied experiences of early urbanization . Whilst the proto-urban sites of the Ubaid period in northern Mesopotamia anticipate the social and political developments of the first Sumerian cities , many proto-cities show little correlation with later urban settlements. The development of cities and proto-cities and the transition away from hunting and gathering toward agriculture is known as

6150-447: The wall. The morning came with most of our unit still behind us, but we were beyond the wall. Behind the gate great heaps of sandbags were piled up. We 'cleared them away, removed the lock, and opened the gates, with a great creaking noise. We'd done it! We'd opened the fortress! All the enemy ran away, so we didn't take any fire. The residents too were gone. When we passed beyond the fortress wall we thought we had occupied this city. As

6232-404: The walls of the marketplace of Chang'an were thicker than the walls of major European capitals. Aside from their immense size, Chinese walls were also structurally different from the ones built in medieval Europe. Whereas European walls were mostly constructed of stone interspersed with gravel or rubble filling and bonded by limestone mortar, Chinese walls had tamped earthen cores which absorbed

6314-487: The “origin of states”, “primary state formation” or “archaic states” as opposed to any “Urban Revolution”, and it is noted that “Childe's concept of the Urban Revolution was about the transition to complex, state level societies, and not primarily about urbanism or cities per se”. Childe's enduring influence in defining urban settlements has been frequently called into question, as his description features “nothing about

6396-585: Was "almost impervious to the efforts of horizontal fire." In fact twentieth century explosive shells had some difficulty creating a breach in tamped earthen walls. We fought our way to Nanking and joined in the attack on the enemy capital in December. It was our unit which stormed the Chunghua Gate. We attacked continuously for about a week, battering the brick and earth walls with artillery, but they never collapsed. The night of December 11, men in my unit breached

6478-456: Was completed by 1575, running parallel but to the north of Calvi's zigzag upper wall. It runs up the slope of The Rock to the Signal Station . Work was stopped on the traverse, but Philip II's chief engineer Tibúrcio Spannocchi refused to stop work on the zigzag wall, which was eventually finished in 1599, and forms the upper portion of the Charles V Wall. The traverse wall along the top of

6560-780: Was still a decisive factor in the success of the settlement. In 6000 B.C., a major earthquake shifted or interrupted the Spring of Ain es-Sultan, likely causing the end of Neolithic Jericho. Çatalhöyük is a mega-site of the Neolithic in Southern Anatolia that was inhabited from 7100-6000 B.C., and had a population of up to 8000 people in a site measuring 34 acres. The site consists of sequences of mudbrick buildings built atop one another and separated by spaces for middens and livestock. Rather than showing signs of deliberate planning, Çatalhöyük displays an “organic modular development through

6642-431: Was the greatest advantage enjoyed by the star fort. As a result, sieges lasted longer and became more difficult affairs. By the 1530s the bastion fort had become the dominant defensive structure in Italy. Outside Europe, the star fort became an "engine of European expansion," and acted as a force multiplier so that small European garrisons could hold out against numerically superior forces. Wherever star forts were erected

6724-438: Was to build relatively low and thick walls of packed earth, which could both withstand the force of cannon balls and support their own, defensive cannon. Chinese wall-building practice was, by happenstance, extremely resistant to all forms of battering. This held true into the twentieth century, when even modern explosive shells had some difficulty in breaking through tamped earth walls. The Chinese Wall Theory essentially rests on

#713286