Nanjing is famous for its city wall, built around 650 years ago by the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, who made Nanjing his capital. You can see a portion of the wall to the left of the gate.
Originally measuring over 33 km, this is the longest city wall ever built in the world. An impressive 22 km of the wall remain standing today, winding and wandering its way around Nanjing's natural features. Other Chinese cities built imposing city walls, but most have been destroyed.
I was impressed by all of the mature trees in this park. Trees seem hard to come by in many areas of China. The lower portions of the trunks are painted white to make them more visible at night. I presume this is to protect the tree from a person or vehicle, not the other way around
It took 20 years for 200,000 workers to build this wall in the late 1300's. Its average height is around 40' and its average width at the top is around 20'.
Bricks used for construction of the wall came from 5 different provinces. Each brick was stamped with information specifying the place and person who made it, to help insure good workmanship. The less visible characters on the lower brick in the photo seem more like this could possibly be a 650-year-old stamp. That's some new-looking mortar between the bricks--there's obviously been some reconstruction of the wall in places.
Looking at the writing on these bricks gives me pause. 650 years ago my European peasant ancestors were probably just barely eking out enough food to survive and were centuries away from becoming literate.
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