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 (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.

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?