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Fortification

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Fortiguerra (or Forteguerri), Niccolo (2)

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Dictionaries
Holman Bible Dictionary
• Fort, Fortification
Hastings' BibleDictionary
• Fortification and Siegecraft
Smith Bible Dictionary
• Fortifications
Webster Dictionary
• Fortification
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Fortification
• Fortification and Siegecraft
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
• Fortification; Fort; Fortified (Fenced) Cities; Fortress
Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia
• Fortifications
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Fortification
Lexicons
• מִבְצָר , מִבְצָר

The Hebrews had several terms which include the idea of military walls, and which are variously rendered in the Auth. Vers., as "fort," "fortress," "fenced city," "castle," "strong-hold," mound," "trench," etc., all of which see in their places. Inventions for the defense of men in social life are older than history. The walls, towers, and gates represented on Egyptian monuments, though dating back to a period of fifteen centuries before the Christian aera, bear evidence of an advanced state of fortifications of walls built of squared stones, or of squared timber judiciously placed on the summit of scarped rocks, or within the circumference of one or two wet ditches, and furnished alone the top with regular battlemen to protect thee defenders (see Wilkinson, 1:407 sq.). All these are of later invention than the accumulation of unhewn or rudely chipped uncemented stones, piled on each other in the form of walls, in the so-called Cyclopean, Pelasgian, Etruscan, and Celtic styles, where there are no ditches, or towers, or other gateways than mere openings occasionally left between the enormous blocks employed in the work. As the first three styles occur in Etruria they show the progressive advance of military architecture, and may be considered as more primitive, though perhaps posterior to the era when the progress of Israel, under the guidance of Joshua, expelled several (Canaanitish tribes, whose system of civilization, in common with that, of the rest of Western Asia, bore an Egyptian type, and whose towers and battlements were remarkably high, or, rather, were erected in very elevated situations. When, therefore, the Israelites entered Palestine, we may assume that the "fenced cities" they had to attack were, according to their degree of antiquity, fortified with more or less of art, but all with huge stones in the lower walls, like the Etruscan. Indeed, Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, and even. Jerusalem, still bear marks of this most ancient system, notwithstanding that this region. the connecting link between Asia and Africa, between the trade of the East and the West, and between the religious feelings of the whole earth, has been the common battlefield of all the great nations of antiquity, and of modern times, where ruin and desolation, oftentimes repeated, have been spread over every habitable place. Stones from six to fifty feet in length. with suitable proportions, can still be detected in many walls of the cities of those regions, wherever quarries existed; from Nineveh, where, beneath the surface, there still remains ruins and walls of huge stones, sculptured With bas-reliefs, originally painted, to Babylon, and Bassorah, where bricks, sundried or baked, and stamped with letters, are yet found, as well as in all the plains of the rivers where that material alone could be easily procured. (See ARCHITECTURE). As among the Hebrews there was no system of construction strictly so called, but simply an application of the means of defense to the localities, no uniformity of adaptation existed, and therefore we refer to the foregoing as specimens of the numerous illustrations of this subject that occur on the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments and to other explanations which are given under the several. terms in other parts of this work. (See CITY); (See SIEGE); (See WAR), etc.

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