The Great Wall of China Looking Beyond the Pictures: Analyzing Photographs

What do you see in the image? Borders, walls, place names, bodies of water What are the dominant features? Borders and the walls What can you infer? The Great Wall is or was a series of walls, not a single wall The Great Wall was a series of small walls that were built in the Spring and Autumn Period ( B.C), and Warring States Period ( B.C.).. There were several small states that built small, simple walls for defense. They were made of stamped earth and gravel.

What do you see in the image? Mountains, wall, watchtowers, path What are the dominant features? Mountains, wall, length What can you infer? The wall was built on mountain tops The wall stretches for 6,700 km (4,160 miles). It was built on mountain tops to keep invaders out (barbarian Huns from the north), and move soldiers quickly. The Qin emperor, Shihuangdi, ordered smaller walls destroyed and new walls connected to the major fortifications, to help centralize power.

What do you see in the image? Horse & rider, castle, wall, plain What are the dominant features? Castle, wall What can you infer? Wall also built along flatlands The wall that was built on flat land was also made of stamped earth. There were parts of the various dynasties that did not run along mountain tops, which were harder to defend.

What do you see in the image? watchtowers, wall, windows What are the dominant features? watchtowers What can you infer? Men were in the turrets, used for different reasons There was a watchtower built every 100 meters or so. They were intended to watch for enemies and light signal fires to warn people that an attack was coming.

What do you see in the image? Wall, watchtowers, window What are the dominant features? window What can you infer? Windows used to watch/ defend safely The watchtowers had windows that were use to watch for enemies and to shoot arrows, etc, from. They provided safety, too.

What do you see in the image? Watchtower, people, wall, mountain What are the dominant features? Gate, watchtower What can you infer? Gates used for a variety of reasons The Great Wall had gates in it. These were used for trade, communication, and even attacking enemies.

Other Interesting Things About the Great Wall of China The wall was also built to keep nomadic people from going out, and from coming back in with stolen property (which would make enemies angry and cause an attack). The Ming Dynasty emperors had the most work done on the wall, and the best because they used bricks and stone instead of rammed (stamped) earth. Commoners were forced to build the wall, where hundreds of thousands died from cold, heat, hunger, or abuse. Many of these peasants were BURIED IN THE WALL and have been unearthed by archaeologists. It’s the largest human-built structure in the world. The Great Wall also extends into Mongolia.

What do you learn from these paintings?

 During its construction, the Great Wall was called “the longest cemetery on earth” because so many people died building it. Reportedly, it cost the lives of more than one million people  The earliest extensive walls were built by Qin Shi Huang ( B.C.) of the Qin dynasty, who first unified China and is most famous for the standing terra cotta army left to guard his tomb. It is from the Qin (pronounced “chin”) dynasty which the modern word “China” is derived. Little of those earliest walls remain  The dynasties after the Qin which seriously added to and rebuilt the Great Wall were the Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), Sui (A.D ), Jin ( ) and, most famously, the Ming ( ). What survives today are the stone and brick walls predominately from the Ming dynasty. g

 A popular legend about the Great Wall is the story of Meng Jiang Nu, a wife of a farmer who was forced to work on the wall during the Qin Dynasty. When she heard her husband had died while working the wall, she wept until the wall collapsed, revealing his bones so she could bury them. 

The last battle fought at the Great Wall was in 1938 during the Sino-Japanese War, which was between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. Bullet marks can still be seen in the Wall at Gubeikou. a  The Great Wall of China is 25 feet high in some places and ranges from feet wide. a