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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 ]
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 ...
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.
Gate tower: a tower built next to, or on top of the city gates to better defend the city gates. Wall tower: a tower built on top of a segment of the wall, which usually extended outwards slightly, so as to be able to observe the exterior of the walls on either side. In addition to arrow slits, ballistae, catapults and cannons could be mounted ...
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]
Greek siege tower first used in Rhodes. [5] Polybolos: 289 BC Greece: A siege engine with torsion mechanism, drawing its power from twisted sinew-bundles. Sambuca: 213 BC Sicily: Roman seaborne siege engine build on two ships. Siege hook: 189 BC Rome: A siege hook is a weapon used to pull stones from a wall during a siege.
Bergfried (plural: bergfriede; English: belfry; French: tour-beffroi; Spanish: torre del homenaje) is a tall tower that is typically found in castles of the Middle Ages in German-speaking countries [1] and in countries under German influence. Stephen Friar in the Sutton Companion to Castles describes a bergfried as a "free-standing, fighting ...
The unique architecture of the Svaneti towers and the medieval character of Ushguli, Mestia, and the Upper Svaneti led to the region's inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996. [ 2 ] A modern reconstruction of a Svan Tower is built near Tbilisi , as part of the Tbilisi Open Air Museum of Ethnography in Georgia, overlooking the ...