According to the Wikipedia article on the history of Bukhara:
After the fall of the Kushan Empire, Bukhara passed into the hands of Hua tribes from the Mongolian steppe and entered a steep decline. However, the 5th century saw an unprecedented growth in urban and rural settlements throughout the entire oasis. Around this time the whole oasis territory was surrounded by a more than 400 km long wall.
I assume this structure dates to that period of construction?
Prince Siyawush built the Ark of Bukhara and was eventually buried there.
Ok, saying a fortress in Sogdia was built by Siyavash is like saying a fortress in Britain was built by Arthur or a fortress in Greece was built by Hercules—it’s what the locals say when they forgot who really built it.
The whole thing is basically a wall-clad hill. heaping one stone onto another is something they managed even thousands of years ago. And the climate (it is an oasis in the desert) is dry enought to keep it from eroding.
So it’s not walls then I suppose. Just the slopes of a flat topped pyramid like thing. I mean, it still provided a height advantage, but it feels like they have lesser cover from arrows than they would have if it was like a conventional wall.
Pure speculation - a typical siege strategy was to dig under walls to cause them to collapse. First, the earthen mound would make the tunneling to collapse a much more labor intensive effort. Second, if an enemy was at the base of the wall it could actually be easier to hit them with projectiles at this angle rather than leaning over and aiming straight down.
Again, I have zero evidence to support these points, just spitballing here.
The tunneling issue makes sense. The wall will be much more stable because of the greater base area, and the sappers will need to dig a much bigger cavity under the wall for all the additional material to fall into - if the holes too small the wall might not collapse well enough for the ground forces to have a good opening to assault.
The second point is less convincing though. Forts and castle walls had mitigation for that extra issue - machicolations are an example. Often, arrows wouldn’t be used for killing the people right at the base of the wall, instead rocks or hot sand would be used to fuck up their day. These also took out armored units - rocks just, well, crushed them, and hot sand got in the gaps and visors and burned the shit out of them. They could also often not get rid of it without taking off the armor, so they just burned till the sand cooled down.
Also arrows were a manufactured commodity. Rocks were just taken from the land, or could be waste from quarries etc, and sand is rough, coarse, and everywhere.
Well clearly it’s because the castle defenders of that era were quite sophisticated, but simply don’t dance they just pull up their pants and do the rockaway.
You’d think there’d be a reason beyond construction requirements, though—otherwise someone in the past 1,500 years would have replaced it with a more conventional wall.
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