The Wall of China is one of the walls and forts built in ancient China, which was built about 500 years ago.
Its length has been estimated to be between 2400 kilometers and 8000 kilometers, but in 2012, china’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage revealed in a study that the total length of the Wall of China is about 21,000 kilometers.
This wall is so popular all over the world that everyone knows about it, but there are many assumptions and misinformation about it.
Below, with the help of John Mann, author of ‘The Great Wall of China’, we will explain five assumptions about this magnificent architecture that have nothing to do with reality.
1۔ It can be seen from the moon.
American illustrator Robert Ripley was the first to publicize the assumption that the Wall of China is visible from the moon. In one of his films , ‘Believe It and Not!’, he described the Wall of China as ‘the most powerful work of man’, claiming that it can be seen with the help of the human eye even from the moon.
Of course, this claim was not based on solid evidence because it was made 30 years before any human went to the moon.
Even Joseph Needham, a renowned Chinese expert on history and culture and author of ‘Science and Civilization in China’, said, “The Wall of China is the only human construction that even astronomers on Mars can discover.” ‘
However, his claim was rejected by the astronauts, but still the fact that the Wall of China was seen from the moon was considered a fact.
But on China’s first space flight in 2003, astronaut Yang Liwei buried this myth forever, saying that he did not see anything on Earth from space.
2. It’s the same wall.
One assumption is that it is a single long wall while it is not because it has many parts. And very few of them resemble the magnificent creation that tourists visit.
The parts of it that have been well maintained meet those parts that pass through forests and wilderness and where pedestrians are forbidden to go. There are shrubs and ruins, and these parts meet the water bodies.
On many parts, the wall is made up of double, triple and even four layers and these parts meet each other.
The part of the Wall of China that you see around Beijing has archaeological signs, some of which are located just below the same wall.
And these divided parts are nothing compared to other mud walls, built in parallel and scattered sections towards western China.
3۔ It was built to keep the Mongols away from China.
The construction of the Wall of China was first ordered by the King of China, who died around 210 BC: before the Mongols appeared, because the Mongols came around 800 CE.
Then China will be threatened by the Zhengos, who were probably the ancestors of the Huns.
The war with the Mongols began in the late 14th century when King Ming expelled the Mongols from China.
4۔ The bodies of workers are buried in the Wall of China
There are many rumors about the Wall of China that the bodies of the workers who built it are buried in the Wall of China.
These stories probably originated from Sima Qian, a prominent historian of the Han Dynasty, who criticized his own emperor for insulting his predecessor, the Qin Empire.
However, no human structure or bones have ever been recovered from this wall and no evidence has been found. And there is no mention of these rumors in archaeology or old memories.
5۔ Marco polo had seen it.
It is true that Marco Polo never mentioned the Wall of China, and used the Wall of China only as an argument that he had never been to China.
At that time (at the end of the 13th century) all of China was ruled by the Mongols, so the wall must have become useless because the invaders had destroyed northern China 50 years ago under Genghis Khan.
The Mongols, who ignored the China Wall during the war, did not even need to mention it in peacetime.
Marco polo must have crossed it several times from Beijing on his way to Kublai Khan’s palace in Shangdu, but he would have no reason to focus on it.