The Great Wall of China is Crumbling

The world’s largest fortification, the Great Wall of China is crumbling after centuries of neglect. It has been found that one-third of the wall’s 12,000 miles has crumbled to dust and saving the portion which is said to be in good condition is going to be the greatest challenge to preserve the cultural history of China.

Widely recognized as one of mankind’s greatest engineering feats, the Great Wall is built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and some section during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) or earlier. The legendary wall is now situated about 50 miles north of Beijing.

The Great Wall is not a single continuous structure but a series of stone fortifications that crawl across the country from the Korean border to the Gobi desert. It is also very difficult to reach some of the vulnerable sections of the ancient wall, as it has been completely cut off from the rest of the civilisation for years and therefore now to identify the crumbling areas more specifically Chinese authorities have deployed drones.

With the help of drones, Chinese authorities are able to map and measure sections of the wall that are vulnerable and affected. It has been found that 30 percent of the total area of the wall is crumbling into ruins. Data collected by the drones have also helped authorities not just to identify but also to take significant steps to support the structure for the time being.

Zhao Peng, an architect involved in this project has informed BBC, that the efforts to reconstruct the wall is more complicated than just changing the old walls with new stone and concrete. Speaking to BBC, Peng said, “Some sections of the Great Wall are very dangerous. Using drones, we can measure lengths and undulations. It’s such a complex structure. We need to study arrow holes, battlements, floor designs and even lime content”.

During the 1970s, China under Chairman Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in the country and he encouraged people to dismantle the wall and use the bricks to build their own homes.

For nearly two millennia, until the 1600s, the wall was marked as the frontier that separated China’s agriculture-based civilization from the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, which includes the Mongols, Manchus and Xiongnu. Though the wall was not designed to keep the peoples apart, rather it was used to initiate trade, commerce and interactions more aggressively.