Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander
First of all, I'm wondering what materials were used to build the walls. Ideally, if there is any possibility that fairly light and easy-to-work with materials like brick could have lasted this long, I'd like the walls to be made out of those. At any rate, the walls are not granite or any similarly hard type of stone. Limestone is a possibility, if it could have lasted thousands of years (with repairs and additions).
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Mud brick, possibly with a drystone or baked brick foundation (I forget the Greek word which archaeologists use ...
socle?) and possibly with a baked brick facing. The foundation prevents the winter rains from dissolving the adobe, and it make life harder for enemies with picks.
Stone elements tended to appear in places like the Levant and Anatolia with relatively good supplies of stone, but not in Mesopotamia because there is not enough stone locally but there were always burghers with an annual service tax due, mud, and straw.
I don't have reliable data on height-to-thickness rations. Check your library for a translation of Philon of Byzantium's manual for architects of fortresses? You should definitely be able to find data on Greek and Hittite fortifications at anywhere serious, though I don't know how Recijavik is for ancient history.
Greek Aims in Fortification and
Hellenistic Fortifications from the Aegean to the Euphrates are two English titles which come to mind.