The Great Wall of China VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP

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 BUILDING THE WALL TOOK MORE THAN 1800 YEARS.

 As far back as the 8th century BCE, barriers were going up to repel nomadic armies. When Qin Shi Huang seized power of a collection of neighboring principalities in 221 BCE and kicked off the Qin Dynasty, he began construction on a 5000-kilometer wall to safeguard his territory. Later dynasties continued this work and added their own flourishes. While construction began under the Qin Dynasty, the recognizable segments that we think of when we visualize the Great Wall were largely the handiwork of the Ming Dynasty, which created these facets between the 14th and 17th centuries CE. 

The Great Wall is largely crafted from unremarkable building materials like earth and stone. More interestingly, glutinous rice—known colloquially as “sticky rice”—was incorporated into the mortar recipe thanks to its cohesive properties. Modern studies have indicated that the amylopectin of the rice (the same substance that makes it sticky) helps explain the wall’s strength and endurance. 


The Great Wall is more accurately described as a 20,000-kilometer network of walls spanning the northern border of Ancient and Imperial Chinese territories. A collection of walls and not one solid wall. 

In a particularly extreme version of modern community service, Great Wall construction, maintenance, and surveillance were regular duties of convicted criminals during the Qin Dynasty. To distinguish outlaw laborers from their civilian colleagues, authorities shaved working convicts’ heads, blackened their faces, and bound their limbs in chains. Transgressions ranging from homicide to tax evasion were all punishable with Wall duty.

 The work was dangerous—some estimates state that 400,000 workers perished while building the wall. Many grieving family members feared that the spirits of their loved ones would be forever trapped within the structure that cost them their lives. In an effort to grant deceased laborers spiritual emancipation, a mourner would cross over the Wall with a rooster in tow. This tradition was believed to help guide a soul away from the fortification. 


Lining the Great Wall are shrines and tributes to figures from Chinese history. Guan Yu, a third-century general who served during the Han dynasty, is honored with temples built on the Wall.


Despite all the effort that went into making Great Wall the premiere component of China’s military defense system, many of the country’s varied enemies throughout history managed passage across the barrier. Manchurian invasion through the Wall in the 17th century resulted in the fall of the Ming dynasty. 





“The Great Wall of China” is a nickname commonly used by Americans, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, while other Western nations prefer a humbler designation: “The Chinese Wall.” Within China, the Wall has known a number of monikers, having been introduced in its inceptive days as “The 10,000-Li-Long Wall” (as in the first century BCE publication Records of the Grand Historian) and “The Long Wall of 10,000 Li” (as in Book of Song, published during the fifth century CE), a Li being about a third of a mile. Over time, the Wall earned some more ostentatious handles, including “The Purple Frontier” and “The Earth Dragon.” Ultimately, China christened its manmade wonder with a simple but appropriate name: “The Long Wall.”