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The Ark of Bukhara is a spectacular-looking fortress located in Uzbekistan, built 1,500 years ago
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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Was there any advantage to having it lean like that?
In defensive terms, no, not really. They had to build it like this because these aren't really walls per se, it's just brick lining on the outside of an earthen mound, and mounds are, well, mound-shaped. https://gomadnomad.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Bukharas-Ark-Palace.jpg
It would’ve made siege ladders harder to set up.
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.
They did. This is only the oldest, innermost fortification in the city. AFAIK additional layers of walls were build around it later.
So it doesn’t fall down
Is it a lean, or is it wider at the bottom?
This question confuses me geometrically
is it \ or △ shaped ?
It's _/‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾\_ shaped. It's not freestanding walls, the whole thing is an earthen mound with a flat top and its sides lined with bricks.
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.
Not this one, but newer forts were built with angled walls to help protect against canon balls and the like.
But there the walls were still vertical to the ground yeah?
No. https://i.imgur.com/wKgLVxA.png
Harder to knock down or undermine?
You'd think it would lean the other way to make bit harder to climb.
Edit: or this could be a view from the inside. Or maybe the goal is to keep people in rather than out.
Edit again: none of these things seem true according to Wikipedia. It's curved inwards and it houses the rich, so it seems to just be aesthetics.
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.
Seems to me it'd be a lot easier to scale this incline than a vertical wall
It's gregnant