Professor Gideon Shelach-Lavi (Professor, Department of Asian Studies, The Louis Frieberg Chair of East Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Sometime during the 10th to 13th centuries CE a system of long-walls (or 'Great Walls') was built in areas currently in North China and Northeastern Mongolia. This network of walls, forts, and enclosures covers an estimated area of 4000 km and spans a wide range of ecozones, from the deserts of western China to the steppes of northern Mongolia and the Khingan mountain range. While this is one of the longest and most elaborate systems of its kind the world has ever seen, it is unclear who built it, when exactly it was built and for what purpose. Prof. Shelach-Lavi is heading a new research project, titled The Wall (https://thewall.huji.ac.il/), which combines archaeological, geographic, historic and paleo-climatic data to date, map and analyze this extensive wall-system. In this talk he will report on the work done so far and on new insights that it generated.