Walls in the ancient world were built around cities or territories for defense but also served many other purposes, such as enclosing temples, surrounding palaces, enclosing tombs, providing people with homes, and encircling sports venues, among other purposes. These walls also frequently served as a kind of canvas for artists depicting kings and their gods.
The oldest walls extant are those of the temple of Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey, dated to around 11,500 years ago. The first city walls surrounded Jericho in the 10th century BCE and walled cities became common throughout Mesopotamia by c. 4500 BCE. The earliest walls were made of sun-dried brick before they began to be constructed of stone in ancient Egypt. Stone would become the most common building material for walls in other regions as well, including the Indus Valley Civilization, China, Greece, and Rome.
The following gallery presents images of ancient walls from Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica. Some, like the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, are ornamented while others, like the Great Wall of China, are not; but all are expressions of the cultures that raised them and believed they would stand the test of time.
