More superlatives have been heaped upon the Great Wall of China than on any other structure in the world. The greatest construction project ever undertaken by man. The facts speak for themselves: the wall stretches for some 4000 miles across China, following a twisting, curving path thay been likened to body of a dragon. It nwas constructed over a period of 2100 years by millioms of soldiers and labourers, and it cost the lives of untold thousands; in one ten-day period alone, in the seventh century AD, 500,000 men perished.
In contrast to the earlier walls, which had consisted largely of defensive ditches with banks of earth made by pounding soil into wooden 'form', a variety of materials and construction methods was employed in the fabrication of Shi Huangdi's wall.As transport was difficult, local materials were used. In mountainous areas, blocks of stone were hewn from the rock face; oak, pine and fir logs infilled with tamped earth was the favourite combination in forested regions; and a mixture of earthm sand and pebbles was used in the Gobi Desert. Transportation was by human chain.
The wall was never intended as a defensive fortification in its own right: it relied always on manned garrisons to deter invaders. Line-of-sight communication between watchtowers meant that a message could travel from one end of the to the other in just 24 hours-a feat unequalled until the advent of the telephone.
The sections of the Ming wall that have survived best are those constructed of masonry. At the height of the Ming dynasty the wall stretched from Shanhaiguan on the Bohai Gulf east of Beijing to Jiauiguan inm the central Asian province of Gansu. Today, those sections around the village of Badaling, some 40 miles from Beijing, are the best preserved. Elsewhere the condition of the varies from good to dilapidated- the latter particularly in the far west. To the Chinese it is a potent reminder of the mation's greatness, longevity and indestructibility. To the rest of the world it is a stunning monument that stands as a testmony to human strenggth, ingenuity and endurance.
