The Great Wall of China

1
The Great Wall of China

• Looking Beyond the Pictures Analyzing Photographs

2

• 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
(770-476 B.C), and Warring States Period (475-221
B.C.). . There were several small states that
built small, simple walls for defense. They were
made of stamped earth and gravel.
3

• 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.
4

• 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.
5

• 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.
6

• 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.
7

• 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.
8
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. Its
the largest human-built structure in the
world. The Great Wall also extends into
Mongolia.
9
What do you learn from these paintings?
10

• 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 (260-210 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. 581-618), Jin
  (115-1234) and, most famously, the Ming
  (1368-1644). What survives today are the stone
  and brick walls predominately from the Ming
  dynasty.g

11

• 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.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vlKPe_JZTr90

12

• 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 15-30 feet wide.a