Silesia Walls (Polish: Wały Śląskie, German: Dreigräben) are a line of three (or sometimes fewer) parallel earthen ramparts and ditches that run through Lower Silesia in Poland, by the towns Szprotawa and Kożuchów. The walls are about 2.5 metres tall and, at their widest, 47 metres. They run for about 30 kilometres. It is hypothesized by Maciej Boryna of the Muzeum Ziemi Szprotawskiej that the Silesia Walls were the southwest border of the Duchy of Głogów and built in 1413-1467. It is possible that rather than being military in nature the wall was designed to reduce smuggling.
Famous quotes containing the word walls:
“Lift not thy spear against the Muses’ bower:
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra’s poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)