Ancient+China+Paper

//__ The Great Wall of China __// By: Tess Fox March 11, 2008 Did you know that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure you can see from outer space? Well, it is and that is pretty amazing. The wall winds 4,500 miles and travels through mountainous landscapes. The Great Wall is an amazing site to see and climb. It took people a long time to build the wall. There is a lot of interesting information that explains how and why the wall made. Also, it is unique where the Great Wall is located and what the wall was made of. The Great Wall of China was entirely built by hand. It was built by emperors connecting walls together that were already there. In addition, the Qin emperor captured enemies, scholars, criminals and anyone else who irritated him. Shi Huangdi, the first Qin Emperor put the people to work that he had captured. During the Qin dynasty, about 3,000 people worked on building the wall. The bad thing was they didn’t get paid. While people were building the wall rocks fell on people, walls caved in, and people died from exhaustion and diseases. The people that were building the wall were only fed enough food to keep them alive. They must have not been happy building the wall and were not happy that they didn’t get paid or didn’t get a lot of food to eat. The first emperor of China Shi Huangdi built the Great Wall because he wanted to protect his people from the Mongolia invaders. They did this by connecting walls together. Another reason was they wanted a barrier for the northern part of China. Some emperors used the same system to build the wall, which was forced labor. Some emperors wanted to protect the borders from invaders. After the Emperor Shi Huangdi’s death, people still build the wall to protect China for many years. The Great Wall’s height is 30-50 feet. The width is 13-49 feet wide. There is a road that runs along the top of the wall that is thirteen feet wide. The location and the materials of the Great Wall are very interesting. The wall passes through Shanhaiguan, through The Bohai Sea to Jiayugan, then to the Gobi Desert. The main strip of the wall stretches across northern China. The Western part of the main strip stretches west into the top of the Nur Province which is in the Xinjiang Province. The eastern part of the main strip stretches east to Shanaiguan. Also, the Eastern part winds through mountains. In this region, the side of the Wall is made of brick or stone, molded around the earth, and the top is paved. The Great Wall wasn’t solid, it’s was just a bunch on connected walls. The Western part of the Wall was made of earth, brick, and concrete stones. The wall was mostly made of rubble which is small pebbles or rocks. Sections of the wall were destroyed while they were putting new material on in the early 1970’s. Over the years parts of the Great Wall have crumbled and must be re-built again and again. Half of the wall was disappeared over the years by wars. In conclusion, The Great Wall of China is the biggest man-made structure in the world. People from all over the world come to see it because it is such an amazing site. The Great Wall is a landscape that people climb and enjoy. People continue to fix and improve the crumbling and collapsing parts. Parts of the wall have been closed off because the wall is very delicate and they don’t want it to fall completely apart. Now, The Great Wall of China still stands and most likely always will. It would be really awesome to be able to see the out line of the Wall from outer space.