Five myths about the Great Wall of China that many still assume to be true

The Great Wall of China is an ancient series of walls and fortifications located in northern China, built about 500 years ago.

Estimates of its length vary between 2,400 km and 8,000 km, but a 2012 archaeological study by China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage revealed that the wall is more than twice that length: about 21,000 km long. …

It is such a famous construction and one that has been talked about so much, that there is a lot of inaccurate information circulating about it.

Below, with the help of John Man, author of “The Great Wall of China,” we share some of the most common myths about this magnificent monument.

1 – It cannot be seen from the Moon

It was Robert Ripley, the American illustrator who made a fortune with his animated film “Believe It or Not!”, who called the Great Wall “Man's most powerful work, the only one that would be visible to the human eye from the Moon”.

This claim, of course, was not based on any evidence, as it was made 30 years before anyone had been to space.

However, it was sanctioned simply for its use.

Even the eminent sinologist Joseph Needham, author of “Science and Civilization in China,” stated that “the Wall has been considered the only work of man that could be detected by Martian astronomers.”

Although it has been debunked by astronauts, the lunar version is still widely cited as “fact.”

The truth was established once and for all during China's first space flight in 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei said he couldn't see anything from orbit.

2 – It is not one wall but many

The wall is not one, it is one, plural. They are segments, and very few of them resemble the glorious creation that tourists flock to.

The most manicured sections give way to wild ones (in ruins, covered in weeds, prohibited for walkers) and these fade into the gaps opened by roads and reservoirs.

In many places, the wall is doubled, tripled and even quadrupled. And these sections overlap.

The parts you see around Beijing have ancient precedents, some of which are located directly under the wall.

And these divided sections are nothing compared to other earthen walls, which run west in parallel lines and scattered segments.

3 – It was not built to repel the Mongols

The wall was commissioned by the First Emperor, who died in 210 BC. C., long before the appearance of the Mongols around the year 800 AD. c.

The threat then came from the Xiongnu, who possibly became the ancestors of the Huns.

The confrontation with the Mongols occurred only from the end of the 14th century, when the Ming expelled the Mongols from China.

4 – There are no corpses inside the wall

There are old rumors that speak of workers buried in the wall.

These stories probably arose from an important historian of the Han dynasty, Sima Qian, who criticized his own emperor by disparaging his Qin predecessor.

However, bones have never been found in the wall and there is no evidence, written or archaeological, of this slander.

5 – Marco Polo did see her

It is true that Marco Polo never mentioned her, and this has been used as an argument to say that he never went to China.

At the time (late 13th century) all of China was ruled by the Mongols, so the wall would have been redundant since the invaders devastated northern China under Genghis Khan more than 50 years earlier.

The Mongols, who had ignored the wall during the war, had no need to mention it in peacetime.

Marco Polo must have crossed it several times on his travels from Beijing to Kublai Khan's palace in Xanadu (Shangdu), but he had no reason to pay attention to it.

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