Xi'an City Wall

14. Battlements

Along the outer crest of the city wall there are crenelations or battlements. Under each of the 5,984 crenelles there is a square hole, from which arrows were shot and watch was kept. The lower, inner walls are called parapets. They were used to prevent soldiers from falling off the wall, when traveling back and forth. Here we see one of the cannons used on the wall. One can only wonder how they loaded this muzzle loader to fire it. It had to be on a rolling carriage,