Mistakes and Errors in Books about the Great Wall

[chinoook]

The more I read about the Great Wall the more obvious errors and mistakes I encounter. Even in good and recommendable books. My idea was, in order we all can take advantage of the awareness one has found all can participate.
In a second post in this thread I will write down title and author of the books and the findings. Discussion can be done in the following posts, all "corrections" we found will be stated by me in #2 post.
We only want to regard relevant books.
I hope you will contribute to this and we all can learn about the GW from the discussion.


-chinoook

[chinoook]

Arthur Waldron: The Great Wall of China - From History to Myth

p. 115: "This adobe wall was built by the Ming north of Ning-hsia, between the Ho-lan mountains and the Yellow River. That demonstrates that even the Ming, the only dynasty to build walls of stone, traditional methods of earth construction were still commonly used."

Mistake1: The Ming did not build any wall north of Ningxia (the pinyin name of the province) and the two photographs show wall close to the eastern side of the Helan Shan.

Mistake2: At least the Qin built stone walls (north of Baotou, Inner Mongolia), the Qi also built stone walls (though those are not what we commonly regard as the GW). And the "traditional methods of earth construction" cover more than half of the Ming GW.
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Julia Lovell: The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC - AD 2000

First photo section

"Lieutenant William Parish busied himself producing equally fanciful and romantic paintings of the wall festooning bosomy hills as far as the horizon stretched, interrupted by artistically ruined towers, their square stone edges becoming frayed."

Mistake: One only has to go to Gubeikou and look from the Panlongshan Wall back across the river to Wohushan to see this painting is not fanciful at all, but actually quite accurate. And, William Parish was a Captain, not a Lieutenant.


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Daniel Schwartz: The Great Wall of China

p. 111, p. 112 "Laoninwang"

Mistake: Should be Laoniuwan.
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Hiking Around Beijing

Contents p. 2

Mistake: "HUAN ROU" should be "HUAI ROU"

p. 16

Mistake: In the second sentence on the page, "Shunyi" should be replaced with "Miyun / Huairou".

p. 17

Mistake: In the third sentence on the page, "Shunyi" should be replaced with "Miyun / Huairou".

p. 20, paragraph 2, sentence 1:

Mistake: "Pick up the trail behind the shrine and continue straight on..."

The correct text is:

"Continue along the trail (the shrine will now be on your right) and descend into the valley..."
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-chinoook

[chinoook]

Not to be understood wrong. The book is of the better ones about the GW. The overall conclusions and new insights are remarkable and probably mainly correct. Though the author has rather done academic work than field research and did not have that much field expierience or map knowledge.


-chinoook

[Bryan]

This is a great topic. I will start with a well-documented error in Julia Lovell's book, from the first photo section:

"Lieutenant William Parish busied himself producing equally fanciful and romantic paintings of the wall festooning bosomy hills as far as the horizon stretched, interrupted by artistically ruined towers, their square stone edges becoming frayed."

One only has to go to Gubeikou and look from the Panlongshan Wall back across the river to Wohushan to see this painting is not fanciful at all, but actually quite accurate. And, William Parish was a Captain, not a Lieutenant.

[chinoook]

Wow!

Thx for your post.
I did not know that before but having gone to Gubeikou I understand your evidence.
The book of Lowell is at the limit I gave: relevant books ...


-chinoook

[Bryan]

Assuming Great Wall of China by Thammy Evans is a relevant book, and although it has a lot of good information, it also has a number of errors, some more significant than others. The one that disappoints me most is in the Jiankou discussion on page 177, where the author states that Xizhazi is nearly a four-hour drive from Huairou. Actual driving time is about seventy minutes. I have made the trip by both taxi and bus.

[chinoook]

Daniel Schwartz: The Great Wall of China

p. 111, p. 112 "Laoninwang"

Mistake: Should be Laoniuwan.


-chinoook

[Bryan]

In Hiking Around Beijing:

Contents p. 2

Mistake: "HUAN ROU" should be "HUAI ROU"

p. 16

Mistake: In the second sentence on the page, "Shunyi" should be replaced with "Miyun / Huairou".

p. 17

Mistake: In the third sentence on the page, "Shunyi" should be replaced with "Miyun / Huairou".

p. 20, paragraph 2, sentence 1:

Mistake: "Pick up the trail behind the shrine and continue straight on..."

The correct text is:

"Continue along the trail (the shrine will now be on your right) and descend into the valley..."