How was it built?
Interpretation of peasants building the Wall
The Great Wall of China is arguably the biggest engineering feat of all time. Covering thousands of miles and using more building material than any other structure in the world, it is certainly the largest structure ever created. There must have been some sort of fancy advanced technology used to build it, right? Perhaps that is one of the most amazing, wonderous things about the wall. The Qin period wall was built entirely with human labor.
At any particular time, there were around one million people working on the construction of the Great Wall. These people were all peasants, forced to labor for the emperor's wall. If they refused, they were killed. These peasants worked every day, adding mud and bricks to the Wall. Cold weather, disease, and falling stone caused many fatalities. The dead bodies were buried in the Wall itself, earning it the nickname "The Long Cemetery". It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of bodies lie buried in the Wall. Because of this great loss of life, the construction project was very unpopular.
The entire Qin wall was built with manual labor. However, a new method, called the Tapped Earth method, was invented to make the building of new walls easier. A wooden frame was put in the ground. Layers of earth filled in the frame and patted down so they were compact. The frame was then removed. Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania explains (watch from 4:23 to 5:19):
At any particular time, there were around one million people working on the construction of the Great Wall. These people were all peasants, forced to labor for the emperor's wall. If they refused, they were killed. These peasants worked every day, adding mud and bricks to the Wall. Cold weather, disease, and falling stone caused many fatalities. The dead bodies were buried in the Wall itself, earning it the nickname "The Long Cemetery". It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of bodies lie buried in the Wall. Because of this great loss of life, the construction project was very unpopular.
The entire Qin wall was built with manual labor. However, a new method, called the Tapped Earth method, was invented to make the building of new walls easier. A wooden frame was put in the ground. Layers of earth filled in the frame and patted down so they were compact. The frame was then removed. Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania explains (watch from 4:23 to 5:19):