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What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

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Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#11

Post by thaumasiotes »

jpollock wrote: post #7

I seem to remember reading somewhere that low walls like this weren't really about defense, they were about funneling travelers (with carts) to the tax collectors.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert?

The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collectors to them.

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#13

Post by manwe150 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #11
jpollock wrote: post #7

I seem to remember reading somewhere that low walls like this weren't really about defense, they were about funneling travelers (with carts) to the tax collectors.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert? The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collector…

Unless maybe the point of the wall was to provide the road marker itself that guided folks to the nearest survival point? The article mentions there were frequent wells and encampments, but so few other details

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#14

Post by AlotOfReading »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #11
jpollock wrote: post #7

I seem to remember reading somewhere that low walls like this weren't really about defense, they were about funneling travelers (with carts) to the tax collectors.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert? The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collector…

Are you thinking of the Taklamakan? People wander around the Gobi as a way of life. It's not quite as extreme as you're painting it.

In any case, the traditional routes for the northern silk roads passed south of these walls through the Hexi corridor, at least until the Mongol period when many of them rerouted through the Orkhon valley north of the Gobi. Separate from the silk roads, there was a lot of trade/conflict between the northern Chinese states and the various Mongolian polities like the Liao. Managing that was both economically and existentially necessary for the border states like the xixia.

Also, nomads usually moved to the tax collectors instead of the other way around. More practical that way.

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#15

Post by mmooss »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #10
Aspos wrote: post #2

Does it exist? I could not find a wikipedia article about it. This Gobi Wall can not be a part of what is known as the Great Wall of China as it was built 5 centuries later, no? Can someone explain?

The Great Wall is just part of a larger series of fortifications in eastern Central Asia. One of the others is the less studied Medieval Wall System (MWS). The gobi wall here is a few hundred kilometers of one of the individual walls within the MWS, which as the name suggests is within the gobi desert in the modern country of Mongolia. And just to preclude the usual follow-up, these walls probably weren't major defen…

From a/the related paper:

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/5/1087

> The Medieval (10th to 13th century CE) Wall System (MWS) stretches approximately 4000 km across extensive regions in northern China and Mongolia, as well as shorter sections in Russia (Figure 1). It represents one of the most extensive yet enigmatic architectural features in East Asia. In recent years The Wall Project, funded by the European Research Council, as well as other projects, has extensively studied and published on different sections of this wall line. Such research demonstrated that this extensive system of earthen walls was built by different empires from c. the 10th to the 13th centuries CE [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Among the different sections of the MWS, the wall section located in the southern Mongolia’s Gobi Desert is the least explored and still poorly understood. This study focuses on a 321 km-long segment of this wall line, located in Ömnögovi province of Mongolia, that we refer to as the Gobi Wall (Figure 2).

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#16

Post by smogcutter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #11
jpollock wrote: post #7

I seem to remember reading somewhere that low walls like this weren't really about defense, they were about funneling travelers (with carts) to the tax collectors.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert? The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collector…

If only you could go back and tell them what a waste those walls are! I’m sure the Mongolians would value your expertise.

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#17

Post by thaumasiotes »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #14
thaumasiotes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert? The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collector…

Are you thinking of the Taklamakan? People wander around the Gobi as a way of life. It's not quite as extreme as you're painting it. In any case, the traditional routes for the northern silk roads passed south of these walls through the Hexi corridor, at least until the Mongol period when many of them rerouted through the Orkhon valley north of the Gobi. Separate from the silk roads, there was a lot of trade/conflict…

> Are you thinking of the Taklamakan? People wander around the Gobi as a way of life. It's not quite as extreme as you're painting it.

Perhaps, but I'll note that the pictures in the article show the region as being easily that extreme, and the words say this:

>> large sections [of the wall] were built near sand dunes that would have acted as additional barriers

> Also, nomads usually moved to the tax collectors instead of the other way around. More practical that way.

That's different in no way from what I stated above. If you want to tax people crossing the desert, you station the tax collectors at the oases all travelers must visit.

If you want to tax nomads showing up to buy tools, you station the tax collectors in the markets they must visit.

These are both cases of moving the tax collector to the people being taxed. And in both cases, there's not an alternative. You can't direct the people to go visit the tax collector; they won't follow your instructions. What would be in it for them?

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#18

Post by thaumasiotes »

smogcutter wrote: post #16
thaumasiotes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the point be, in the Gobi desert? The structure of traveling through that is that you follow the silk road between a bunch of major cities built around oases. It's not necessary to divert anyone with walls - the fact that they need to drink, and that they won't be willing to wander off into the desert, get lost, and die, is sufficient. You don't move people to the tax collectors. You move the tax collector…

If only you could go back and tell them what a waste those walls are! I’m sure the Mongolians would value your expertise.

I'm not criticizing the Mongols ("Mongolians"?) for building a pointless "line up here" wall. I'm pointing out that that's not something they did, and criticizing jpollock for suggesting it was.

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#19

Post by LeoPanthera »

slwvx wrote: post #8
Aspos wrote: post #2

Does it exist? I could not find a wikipedia article about it. This Gobi Wall can not be a part of what is known as the Great Wall of China as it was built 5 centuries later, no? Can someone explain?

Ontology in the 21st century: no wikipedia page means non-existence :-)

It is at least a good warning that you might be reading an AI hallucination, and should do further research.

Re: What's Behind the Mysterious Ancient Wall in the Gobi Desert?

#20

Post by smogcutter »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
smogcutter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only you could go back and tell them what a waste those walls are! I’m sure the Mongolians would value your expertise.

I'm not criticizing the Mongols ("Mongolians"?) for building a pointless "line up here" wall. I'm pointing out that that's not something they did, and criticizing jpollock for suggesting it was.

> I'm pointing out that that's not something they did

Well that settles it then!

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