Great Wall of China

Some days ago I posted an awesome MOC of a miniscale Great Wall of China built by Matija. Today I found the minifig scale of the same historical landmark that was built by Si-MOCs.

His building techniques are rather simple but the overall design of the MOC is very well done. I also point out his short history lesson about the Great Wall that gives some enlightenment about the evolution of these walls and their purposes.

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The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortification built over a millennium. Despite popular belief, the wall was not originally constructed to protect against Mongol invaders, but instead built by the various Chinese states to protect their own borders against each other during the Warring State Period in 5th century BC. Most of the original walls was destroyed after Qin conquered all opposing sates and unified the country. The remaining wall was extended into a new northern wall which would protect against the empire against the nomadic Mongols from the north.

The first walls were simple walls made up of rammed earth and stones. By the Ming dynasty in the 16th century more advance techniques were used on the rebuild the walls, bricks, tiles and cut stones.

The MOC depicts the great wall in later age as a young Emperor watches his army march to battle.” – text by Si-MOCs

Great Wall of China, originally uploaded by Si-MOCs.

Great Wall of China

Talking about Matija. Here’s another great work of this landmark builder.The combination of colors in the wall is very close to perfect and cuts the gray’s monotony very well.

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Great Wall of China, originally uploaded by Matija Grguric.

Chinese Junk

Arzlan built an amazing Chinese junk. The hull of the sailboat is very well design and I really liked the way he built the sails with a mix of black and red plates.

Arzlan gives an interesting historical introduction of this kind of boats in his flickr gallery:

“A junk is a Chinese sailboat design dating from ancient times and still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD) and were used as ocean-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were built and used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages. They were found, and in lesser numbers are still found, throughout South-East Asia and India, but primarily in China, perhaps today most famously in Hong Kong. Also, found more broadly, is a growing number of modern recreational junk-rigged sailboats.”

31 Incredible Examples of Lego Architecture

A friend of mine sent me the link to this nice post in the WebUrbanist that collects 31 examples of Lego Architecture. Since most of them are landmarks that belong to our human history, I though that HistoryBricks’ readers would  appreciate it 🙂

Read the full post here.