Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The horseshoe-shaped (or D-shaped) tower is a compromise that gives the best of a round and a square tower. The semicircular side (the one facing the attacker) could resist siege engines, while the rectangular part at the back gives internal space and a large fighting platform on top. [ 1 ]
Motte-and-bailey was the prevalent form of castle during 11th and 12th centuries. A courtyard (called a bailey) was protected by a ditch and a palisade (strong timber fence). Often the entrance was protected by a lifting bridge, a drawbridge or a timber gate tower. Inside the bailey were stables, workshops, and a chapel.
In Cantabria, there is a big number of fortified towers that fulfilled functions of housing and defense. [1] These buildings, generally battlements , were erected mostly between the 13th and 15th centuries by noble families and influenced significantly in the architecture of Cantabria , passing some to be forts-houses, prelude to the future ...
In the First Intermediate Period tomb of General Intef at Thebes (modern Luxor, Egypt), a mobile siege tower is shown in the battle scenes. [2] In modern Harpoot, Turkey, an artistically Akkadian style stone carved relief dated circa 2000 BC was found depicting a siege tower, the earliest known visual depiction from Anatolia (although siege towers were later described in Hittite cuneiform ...
A 19th-century reconstruction of the keep at Château d'Étampes. Since the 16th century, the English word keep has commonly referred to large towers in castles. [4] The word originates from around 1375 to 1376, coming from the Middle English term kype, meaning basket or cask, and was a term applied to the shell keep at Guînes, said to resemble a barrel. [5]
The Powder Tower (Latvian: Pulvertornis) is situated in Riga, Latvia, and originally a part of the defensive system of the town. The current Powder Tower was built in 1650 and renovated in the years 1937 to 1940 when it was added to the structure of the Latvian War Museum .
The largest main tower of a medieval European castle, the mighty donjon of the French Château de Coucy, was still viewed as a threat during the First World War. The German High Command had the roughly 50-metre-high tower blown up on 27 March 1917 in order to cut off the line of retreat for French troops, in spite of widespread international ...
The corners of a medieval fortress were weak points because they were easier to attack and more difficult to defend than the rest of the walls. Not only this, but enemy combatants that reached the tops of walls at the corners were protected at the point where the walls met, making it more difficult to repulse them.