Murus gallicus

Murus Gallicus is the general term which Jules César gave to the Gallic ramparts. In book VII of the War of Gaules, it describes the fortification thus:

Tous the Gallic walls are made, in general, in the following way. One poses on the ground, without interruption over the entire length of the wall, of the beams perpendicular to his direction and separated by equal intervals from two feet. One connects them the ones to the others in work, and one recovers them of a great quantity of ground; the facing is made of large stones embedded in the intervals from which we come to speak. This first firmly established rank, one raises over a second similar rank, by preserving the same interval of two feet between the beams, without however for that they touching those of the lower row, but they are separated by from it a space from two feet also, and each beam is thus isolated from its neighbors by a stone, which fixes it firmly. One always continues in the same way until the wall reached the desired height. This kind of work offers an aspect varied which is not unpleasant to the eye, with its alternation of beams and stones, those not forming any less continuous lines which are cut to right angles; it, moreover, very practical and is perfectly adapted to the defense of the cities, because the stone defends it of fire and the wood of the devastations of the ram, this one not being able neither to break nor to disjoin a frame where the parts which form connection inside in general have forty feet of only one tenant.

Thus, there is a ground construction solidified by a stacking in intersected layers of horizontal beams with a dry stone facing. The interior access to the rampart is done by a fill earth packed. Since 1875, the archeologists indexed in Europe, and especially in France, forty works identified like Gallic walls. Those offer a large variety in detail and dimensions.

The archeologists also indexed two other families of walls:

the wall vitrified, similar to the murus gallicus but of which the facing external underwent a vitrification.
the wall with vertical frontal posts which one more often finds in Eastern Europe.

Sources

Jules César, the War of Gaules : 7.23

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