The Banks Blog

I have made a study of the middle ages, and today as I passed by the banks site, I found this siege tower on site.

The fascinating thing about this temporary staircase is that its design is practically identical to the basic structure of a siege tower. Siege towers were used to scale the walls of fortresses during prolonged battles. The towers were first used in Europe in 4th century BC, and several hundred years before that in the Far East.

A true siege tower would have been covered in wood, then covered in some sort of batting like rags, and then covered in a layer of animal hides. The purpose of this was to hide the troops inside the tower from the arrows and stones being thrown at them from the walls of the fortress or castle. The animal hides helped to keep them from catching on fire when flammable material was hurled at the tower.

Read More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_tower
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_the_siege_tower_used
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/382397/military-technology/57585/Siege-towers#ref=ref521932