From the very beginning, Egyptians attempts to fortify their country. For most of Egypt’s ancient history, it was a land of fortifications. All Egyptian ceremonial buildings, including temples and even funerary complexes, were intended to function as bastions of order and harmony, requiring at least symbolic fortifications to protect them from the surrounding chaos. Unless an enemy was willing to besiege a stronghold until it surrendered or could surprise its garrison and subdue it, he had to conquer it by forcing the gates, by scaling the walls or by breaching them. Since the earliest times measures were taken to prevent these possibilities: Hence, there was an attempt to build fortification walls with massive thickness and of a height that ladders could not be built to scale them.
The gates were specifically protected. While the tops of walls are often decayed completely, drawings indicate that there were cornices all around, behind which the defenders could take cover.According to Wikipedia encyclopedia, defensive walls are a feature of ancient Roman architecture. The Romans generally fortified cities, rather than fortresses, but there are some fortified camps, such as the Saxon Shore forts. City walls were already significant in Etruscan architecture, and in the struggle for control of Italy under the early Republic many more were built, using different techniques. These included tightly-fitting massive irregular polygonal blocks, shaped to fit.
The Romans called a simple rampart wall an agger; at this date great height was not necessary. The Romans walled major cities and towns in areas they saw as vulnerable, and parts of many walls remain incorporated in later defenses. Strategic walls defending the frontiers of the Empire by running across open country were far rarer, and Hadrian’s Wall (from 122) and the Antonine Wall) are the most significant examples, both on the Pictish frontier. Most defenses of the borders of the Roman Empire relied on systems of forts and roads without attempting a continuous barrier.
