The Great Wall of China has been deemed one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world, even though it didn't make the top seven. It is considered to be the largest construction project in history, said to be visible from the moon, and runs for a distance of approximately 1500 miles.
There is even controversy as to when construction of the wall began. Most sources credit the 7th century BC Zhou Dynasty with smaller portions of early construction. Legend states that the first emperor Qin Shi Huang was sleeping on a rug when he had a dream that his soul made a trip to the moon. From outer space he saw his kingdom as a mere tiny dot, so he decided to build a boundary around it, and thus began construction of the Great Wall. In fact, the wall was originally constructed to protect China from northern invaders.
Other sources state that construction began in the year 221 BC under emperor Meng T'ien of the Qin Dynasty in an effort to both protect and unify China. However, it seems this may be a matter of interpretation, because what the Qin Empire actually did was begin to connect all of the existing defense walls built by the various states, creating one long wall. The wall was referred to by many names throughout the centuries, including "Long Wall", "Border Walls", "Wall of Alexander", and "First Frontier Wall". The name "Great Wall of China" was coined by visiting Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries.
An undeniable fact is that the building of the Great Wall claimed many lives. One ancient Chinese myth states that each stone in the wall stands for a life lost during the wall's construction. This myth may be closer to fact than we would like to think. It has been estimated that millions of workers did lose their lives due to intense physical labor, starvation, and disease. Archaeologists have discovered thousands of bodies buried in the foundation of the wall, and bodies were also used to make up the wall's thickness, which ranges from 15 to 25 feet.
Ancient legend states that because construction was being done in a hostile environment, it made the Great Wall bloodthirsty. Another story says that as workers became ill and died, they were buried in the wall; when some workers became sick past the point of usefulness, they were buried alive in the wall; still others were said to have been pounded into the wall as human building material.
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