The construction of the Great Wall began in the third century BC and continued for centuries.
Jerusalem:
The northern segment of the Great Wall of China was built not to block invading armies but rather to monitor civil movements, said an Israeli archaeologist on Tuesday.
When the researchers first mapped the 740-kilometer (460-mile) northern line of the Great Wall, their results challenged previous assumptions.
“Before our research, most people thought that the purpose of the wall was to stop the army of Genghis Khan,” said Gideon Shelach-Lavi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who led the study of two years.
But the North Line, located mainly in Mongolia, winds through the valleys, is relatively low and close to the paths, pointing to non-military functions.
“Our conclusion is that it was more about monitoring or blocking the movement of people and livestock, perhaps taxing them,” said Shelach-Lavi.
He suggested that people may be looking for warmer southern pastures during a medieval cold spell.
The construction of the Great Wall, which is divided into sections that stretch for thousands of kilometers, began in the 3rd century BC and continued for centuries.
The Northern Line, also known as the “Wall of Genghis Khan” in reference to the legendary Mongol conqueror, was built between the 11th and 13th centuries with crushed earth and dotted with 72 structures in small groups.
Shelach-Lavi and his team of Israeli, Mongolian, and American researchers used drones, high-resolution satellite imagery, and traditional archaeological tools to map the wall and find artifacts that helped determine the dates.
According to Shelach-Lavi, whose results of the current study were published in the journal Antiquity, the Northern Line has been largely ignored by contemporary scientists.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
