Feeling Horn-y

 First Of All -

WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!  For we are back on the subject of architecture and Ol' Tolky's work, and today we are going to be looking at the fortress that the nation of Gondor constructed upon the Hornburg, at Helm's Deep.  The 'Horn' in question NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK is taken from the noted warrior Helm Hammerhand, and his horn.  Art!

     As you  might expect, the fortress presents all the design aspects of medieval-level technology and design.  Being constructed upon a height gives it an immediate advantage in observation, further enhanced by the tall watchtower, and makes it harder to assault.

     It's not obvious where the stone for the fortress was quarried, but considering it sits in a valley flanked by mountains made of stone, doubtless locally.  Also present, if unseen, are the Glittering Caves, which can be accessed via the Hornburg.  Art!

     Conrad, being sly and canny, would have tunnelled an emergency exit through to the other side of the mountain from these caves, but that's just me.
     The fortress's immediate approach is by a long, narrow and curved causeway.  Long means an attacker is exposed for the full duration of their assault; note in the picture above very few of the attackers have gotten near the gateway.  Curved means an inability to generate any great speed, so an attack is slowed down.  Narrow prevents a mass assault.  Art!

     This ground-level view shows to advantage the Deeping Wall, a defensive wall twenty feet high and about eight feet thick.  Prior to the attack of Saruman's army it was said that no enemy had ever breached this wall.   As is obvious, it prevents an attacker from being able to surround the Hornburg.  It does have a weakness, however: the Deeping Stream runs beneath it.  The stream wasn't diverted or blocked as it supplied fresh water to the garrison.  Art!

     Here you see Saruman's Hail Mary play, because his army of Orcs and Wildmen don't have any siege weapons; thus a resort to black powder.  This is credible in use as a demolition charge, because casting a cannon to fire stone or iron shot would take ages, and why bother when you can use expendable slaves?  Art!

     Spectacular, yes; realistic, no.  The explosion was in an open tunnel without any tamping in place, so most of the blast would have been channelled outwards, and would likely have slain a great swathe of Orcs besides.

     ANYWAY we've gotten a tad awry from architecture.  What I can't find an image for anywhere is Helm's Dike, which was an outlier fortification towards the mouth of the gorge.  I did find a map - Art!

     A small force there would be able to harass and delay any attacking force, giving the main garrison time to organise and prepare, which is exactly what happens in the novel.

     If you want to extend the analysis a little further, curtain wall defences like the Deeping Wall are going to become obsolete once gunpowder is in more common use and cannon are invented - which is another story for a different kitchen.

     Motley!  Let's play Firework Catch.  No, no, gloves are for sissies.

Enter 'Shikari'

No!  Not the band, the word.  That's why it's in quotation marks.  Conrad came across it several times in the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Empty Room', in reference to the villain Colonel Moran.  He was one of Moriarty's gang, and a very senior member at that.  He'd served in India and hunted big game, very successfully, too.  It's seems to be Hindi for 'Hunter'.  Art!

That's 'Shikari' in Hindi.
We're so cultured.

Shocking Vandalism In London

The Ruffians still maintain an embassy in London, possibly because the staff can buy Western goods and food, rather than live on a diet of potatoes and cabbage, since relations with This Sceptred Isle are about as bad as they can get.

     Hmmmmm what's this?  Art!

Note embassy member at port watching what's going on

     Goodness me, whatever can these vandals be doing, and right outside the Ruffian embassy, too?  Don't they know that this is a busy main road and traffic will spread their paint everywhere?  Art!

     Ooooooooo I see.  Of course, law-abiding Conrad cannot possibly condone this sinful contamination of a public thoroughfare.

     No, wait, I absolutely can.

"The Sea Of Sand"

The pompous bio-vore aristocrat Sur and the Doctor are both sharing the same desert on Earth, Sur being gloaty and the Doctor being apprehensive.

Next would come a sweep across the deserts to find more live fodder.  According to the situation reports so far, a storage site existed to the west.  That was the extent of local life-forms.  Clearly the Infiltration Complex was not situated in a viable area, because from listening in to the radio-waves, the alien culture on Target Seventeen was obviously widespread.

          Consider it a challege, the bio-vore aristocrat told himself.  A challenge to be met and overcome!

 

Sarah felt both worried and annoyed at the Doctor’s continued sulking, as she saw it, atop his crate.  The bio-vores must have fixed their matter transmitter by now, and would be arriving by the hundred – and yet the Doctor sat and brooded, doing nothing!

          She tried again to coax him down.

          ‘Not even for a cup of tea?  With extra sugar?’

          All she got in reply was a sigh.

          ‘Oh be like that then!’ she crossly responded, turning to leave.  Jumping down, the Doctor forestalled her with a hand on her shoulder.

          ‘Time is running out, Sarah.  The Germans will be here very soon, and by then we must have resolved the matter of the bio-vores.  I dread to think what would happen if the aliens gain access to several thousand victims.’

     Hmmm yes, one can see that being a bit of a problem, changing the course of history and all that.  Which is a bad thing, before you ask.

Here's One I Did Earlier

Tooting my own horn a little here.  Art!

Castlefield Roman Fort, Gomorrah On The Irwell

From Quora:What are the pros and cons of becoming an archaeologist instead of a doctor or lawyer?

 I worked on an archaeological dig in Manchester at Castlefield, but I’ve never been either a doctor or solicitor (UK version of a lawyer), so I can only inform about the former.

The pros are that you are literally uncovering history that has been hidden, for hundreds if not thousands of years. Mostly we uncovered Roman pottery, including their luxury Samian ware, but occasionally we got things like steel-yard weights or Elizabethan architecture. If you have a painstaking, detail-oriented nature, especially when classifying finds, then it’s the job for you. When making scale drawings of the site on a drawing-board you got to sit in a nice warm cabin.

The cons were what go with outside work: bad weather made the job miserable. It is also verrrry slow work, as the overburden is taken down only gradually as you trowel away the earth, sketch and take photographs. There was also the ever-present threat of treasure-hunters, who turned up to have a nosey once. Glynn, our site manager, went out and bought a couple of pounds of nails and spent the weekend hammering them into the ground across the whole site.

Ah, those happy, happy Chernobyl-era days!

Contemporary dig 

     That's all, pilgrims.  Ta ta!