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A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a
castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and
sluice Sluice ( ) is a word for a channel controlled at its head by a movable gate which is called a sluice gate. A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway and can be considered ...
s. In older fortifications, such as hillforts, they are usually referred to simply as ditches, although the function is similar. In later periods, moats or water defences may be largely ornamental. They could also act as a sewer.


Historical use


Ancient

Some of the earliest evidence of moats has been uncovered around ancient Egyptian castles. One example is at Buhen, a castle excavated in Nubia. Other evidence of ancient moats is found in the ruins of Babylon, and in reliefs from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and other cultures in the region. Evidence of early moats around settlements has been discovered in many archaeological sites throughout Southeast Asia, including Noen U-Loke, Ban Non Khrua Chut, Ban Makham Thae and Ban Non Wat. The use of the moats could have been either for defensive or agriculture purposes.


Medieval

Moats were excavated around
castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...
s and other fortifications as part of the defensive system as an obstacle immediately outside the walls. In suitable locations they might be filled with water. A moat made access to the walls difficult for siege weapons such as siege towers and battering rams, which needed to be brought up against a wall to be effective. A water-filled moat made the practice of mining - digging tunnels under the castles in order to effect a collapse of the defences - very difficult as well. ''Segmented moats'' have one dry section and one section filled with water. Dry moats that cut across the narrow part of a spur or peninsula are called '' neck ditches''. Moats separating different elements of a castle, such as the inner and outer wards, are ''cross ditches''. The word was adapted in Middle English from the Old French ''motte'' "mound, hillock" and was first applied to the central mound on which a castle was erected (see
Motte and bailey A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortification ...
) and then came to be applied to the excavated ring, a ‘dry moat’. The shared derivation implies that the two features were closely related and possibly constructed at the same time. The term ''moat'' is also applied to natural formations reminiscent of the artificial structure and to similar modern architectural features.


Later western fortification

With the introduction of siege artillery, a new style of fortification emerged in the 16th century using low walls and projecting strong points called
bastion A bastion or bulwark is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fi ...
s, which was known as the '' trace italienne''. The walls were further protected from infantry attack by wet or dry moats, sometimes in elaborate systems. When this style of fortification was superseded by lines of polygonal forts in the mid-19th century, moats continued to be used for close protection.


Africa

The
Walls of Benin The Walls of Benin are a series of earthworks made up of banks and ditches, called ''ya'' in the Edo language, in the area around present-day Benin City, the capital of present-day Edo, Nigeria. They consist of of city iya and an estimated of ...
were a combination of ramparts and moats, called Iya, used as a defence of the capital
Benin City Benin City is the capital and largest city of Edo State, Edo State, Nigeria. It is the fourth-largest city in Nigeria according to the 2006 census, after Lagos, Kano (city), Kano, and Ibadan, with a population estimate of about 3,500,000 as of ...
in present-day Edo State of Nigeria. It was considered the largest man-made structure lengthwise, second only to the Great Wall of China and the largest earthwork in the world. Recent work by Patrick Darling has established it as the largest man-made structure in the world, larger than Sungbo's Eredo, also in Nigeria. It enclosed 6,500 km2 of community lands. Its length was over 16,000 km of earth boundaries. It was estimated that earliest construction began in 800 and continued into the mid-15th century. The walls are built of a ditch and dike structure, the ditch dug to form an inner moat with the excavated earth used to form the exterior rampart. The Benin Walls were ravaged by the British in 1897. Scattered pieces of the walls remain in Edo, with material being used by the locals for building purposes. The walls continue to be torn down for real-estate developments. The Walls of Benin City were the world's largest man-made structure. Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist: "They extend for some 16,000 kilometres in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They cover 6,500 square kilometres and were all dug by the Edo people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet."


Asia

Japanese castles often have very elaborate moats, with up to three moats laid out in concentric circles around the castle and a host of different patterns engineered around the landscape. The outer moat of a Japanese castle typically protects other support buildings in addition to the castle. As many Japanese castles have historically been a very central part of their cities, the moats have provided a vital waterway to the city. Even in modern times the moat system of the Tokyo Imperial Palace consists of a very active body of water, hosting everything from rental boats and fishing ponds to restaurants. Most modern Japanese castles have moats filled with water, but castles in the feudal period more commonly had 'dry moats' , a trench. A is a dry moat dug into a slope. A is a series of parallel trenches running up the sides of the excavated mountain, and the earthen wall, which was also called , was an outer wall made of earth dug out from a moat. Even today it is common for mountain Japanese castles to have dry moats. A is a moat filled with water. Moats were also used in the Forbidden City and Xi'an in China; in Vellore in India; Hsinchu in Taiwan; and in Southeast Asia, such as at
Angkor Wat Angkor Wat (; km, អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring . Originally constructed as a Hinduism, Hindu temple dedicated ...
in Cambodia;
Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...
in
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
and
Chiang Mai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...
in Thailand.


Australia

The only moated fort ever built in Australia was
Fort Lytton Fort Lytton is a heritage-listed 19th century coastal fort in the suburb of Lytton in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The name “Fort Lytton” is also used to describe the military base that surrounded the fort. Fort Lytton was built in ...
in Brisbane. As Brisbane was much more vulnerable to attack than either Sydney or Melbourne a series of coastal defences was built throughout Moreton Bay, Fort Lytton being the largest. Built between 1880 and 1881 in response to fear of a Russian invasion, it is a pentagonal fortress concealed behind grassy embankments and surrounded by a water-filled moat.


North America

Moats were developed independently by
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
n indigenous people of the
Mississippian culture The Mississippian culture was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern United States, Midwestern, Eastern United States, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from appr ...
as the outer defence of some fortified villages. The remains of a 16th-century moat are still visible at the Parkin Archeological State Park in eastern Arkansas. The Maya people also used moats, for example in the city of Becan. European colonists in the Americas often built dry ditches surrounding forts built to protect important landmarks, harbours or cities (e.g. Fort Jay on Governors Island in
New York Harbor New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...
).


Photo gallery

Image:Muiderslot september 2007.JPG,
Muiderslot Muiden Castle (Dutch: ''Muiderslot'', ) is a castle in the Netherlands, located at the mouth of the Vecht river, some 15 kilometers southeast of Amsterdam, in Muiden, where it flows into what used to be the Zuiderzee. It is one of the better kno ...
, Netherlands Image:The moat around Fort Pulaski, Savannah, GA IMG 4673.JPG, Moat surrounding Fort Pulaski National Monument near
Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...
, Georgia Image:Keep of Matsumoto Castle.JPG,
Matsumoto Castle , originally known as Fukashi Castle, is one of Japan's premier historic castles, along with Himeji and Kumamoto. The building is also known as the due to its black exterior. It was the seat of Matsumoto Domain under the Edo Period Tokugawa shog ...
, a Japanese Castle in
Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...
Image:Bodiam-castle-10My8-1197.jpg,
Bodiam Castle Bodiam Castle () is a 14th-century moated castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex, England. It was built in 1385 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a former knight of Edward III, with the permission of Richard II, ostensibly to defend the area agai ...
, a 14th-century castle near
Robertsbridge Robertsbridge is a village in the civil parish of Salehurst and Robertsbridge, and the Rother district of East Sussex, England. It is approximately 10 miles (16 km) north of Hastings and 13 miles (21 km) south-east of Royal Tunbridge ...
in
East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...
, England Image:Caerlaverock Castle from the air.jpg,
Caerlaverock Castle Caerlaverock Castle is a moated triangular castle first built in the 13th century. It is located on the southern coast of Scotland, south of Dumfries, on the edge of the Caerlaverock National Nature Reserve. Caerlaverock was a stronghold of th ...
, a 13th-century castle in southern Scotland Image:Sunset of the Forbidden City 2006.JPG, The Forbidden City, Beijing: North-western angle Image: Angkor-Wat-from-the-air.JPG,
Angkor Wat Angkor Wat (; km, អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring . Originally constructed as a Hinduism, Hindu temple dedicated ...
, Cambodia Image:Egeskov Slot 08.jpg, Egeskov Castle, Denmark Image:LissingenEugenBracht1880BurgLissingen.jpg,
Castle of Lissingen Lissingen Castle (german: Burg Lissingen) is a well-preserved former moated castle dating to the 13th century. It is located on the River Kyll in Gerolstein in the administrative district of Vulkaneifel in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. From the o ...
Image:Sigiriya moat 2011.jpg, Sigiriya moat,
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
File:Qufu City Wall - south of the west gate - looking S - P1050985.JPG, Frozen moat of the walled city of Qufu, China Image:Fortbourtange.jpg, Fort Bourtange, a late 16th-century
star fort A bastion fort or ''trace italienne'' (a phrase derived from non-standard French, literally meaning ''Italian outline'') is a fortification in a style that evolved during the early modern period of gunpowder when the cannon came to domin ...
in
Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
, Netherlands Image:Fort Brockhurst 4-Gosport - geograph.org.uk - 693238.jpg, Fort Brockhurst a mid-19th-century polygonal fort in Hampshire, England Image:Castello_esterno.jpg, The Castello Estense of
Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
, Italy Image:Fort-Jefferson Dry-Tortugas.jpg, Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Florida Image:Moat Castle Steinfurt.jpg, Moat with civic houses bordering on it in Steinfurt Image:Beijing ancient city gate and moat.jpg, Beijing ancient city gate and moat Image:Vellorefort.jpg, Vellore Fort Moat, in Tamil Nadu, India File:Daalsesingel-Utrecht-2020.jpg, The ''Daalsesingel'', a part of the moat that surrounds the city center of Utrecht, Netherlands File:Hikone-Castle-canal-cherry-blossom-2018-Luka-Peternel.jpg, Hikone Castle moat File:Gate-of-Divine-Might-Forbidden-City-2018-Luka-Peternel.jpg, Forbidden City moat File:Landskrona citadell från luften.jpg, Landskrona Citadel with mid 15th-century dual moat construction


Modern usage


Architectural usage

Dry moats were a key element used in French Classicism and Beaux-Arts architecture dwellings, both as decorative designs and to provide discreet access for service. Excellent examples of these can be found in Newport, Rhode Island at
Miramar (mansion) Miramar is a French neoclassical-style mansion on bordering Bellevue Avenue on Aquidneck Island at Newport, Rhode Island. Overlooking Rhode Island Sound, it was intended as a summer home for the George D. Widener family of Philadelphia. History ...
and The Elms, as well as at Carolands, outside of San Francisco, California, and at Union Station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Additionally, a dry moat can allow light and fresh air to reach basement workspaces, as for example at the
James Farley Post Office The James A. Farley Building is a mixed-use structure in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which formerly served as the city's main United States Postal Service (USPS) branch. Designed by McKim, Mead & White in the Beaux-Arts style, the structur ...
in New York City.


Anti-terrorist moats

Whilst moats are no longer a significant tool of warfare, modern architectural building design continues to use them as a defence against certain modern threats, such as terrorist attacks from
car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
s and armoured fighting vehicles. For example, the new location of the
Embassy of the United States in London The Embassy of the United States of America in London is the diplomatic mission of the United States in the United Kingdom. It is located in Nine Elms and is the largest American embassy in Western Europe and the focal point for events relatin ...
, opened in 2018, includes a moat among its security features - the first moat built in England for more than a century. Modern moats may also be used for aesthetic or ergonomic purposes. The Catawba Nuclear Station has a concrete moat around some of the plant. (Other sides of the plant are bordering a lake.) The moat is a part of precautions added to such sites after the
September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
.


Safety moats

Moats, rather than fences, separate animals from spectators in many modern zoo installations. Moats were first used in this way by
Carl Hagenbeck Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a Germans, German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natu ...
at his Tierpark in Hamburg, Germany. The structure, with a vertical outer retaining wall rising direct from the moat, is an extended usage of the ha-ha of English landscape gardening.


Border defence moats

In 2004 plans were suggested for a two-mile moat across the southern border of the
Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
to prevent tunnelling from Egyptian territory to the border town of Rafah. In 2008 city officials in Yuma, Arizona planned to dig out a two-mile stretch of a 180-hectare (440-acre) wetland known as Hunters Hole to control immigrants coming from Mexico.


Pest control moats

Researchers of jumping spiders, which have excellent vision and adaptable tactics, built water-filled miniature moats, too wide for the spiders to jump across. Some specimens were rewarded for jumping then swimming and others for swimming only. '' Portia fimbriata'' from Queensland generally succeeded, for whichever method they were rewarded. When specimens from two different populations of '' Portia labiata'' were set the same task, members of one population determined which method earned them a reward, whilst members of the other continued to use whichever method they tried first and did not try to adapt. As a basic method of pest control in
bonsai Bonsai ( ja, 盆栽, , tray planting, ) is the Japanese art of growing and training miniature trees in pots, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of ''penjing''. Unlike ''penjing'', which utilizes traditional techniques to produce ...
, a moat may be used to restrict access of crawling insects to the bonsai.


See also

*
Drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable ...
*''
Gracht ''Gracht'' (; plural: ''grachten'') is a Dutch word for a canal within a city. ''Grachten'' often have a round shape, and form a circle around the city cores in the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern Germany. Outside the Netherlands, the word '' ...
'' * Ha-ha wall *
Moated settlements A ( ) is a human settlement (village) surrounded by a moat. It is thought to be a new settlement boundary facility brought from the continent along with paddy rice agriculture. When a moat is surrounded by a moat, water moat, it is written moat ...
*
Moot hill A moot hill or ''mons placiti'' (statute hill) is a hill or mound historically used as an assembly or meeting place, as a moot hall is a meeting or assembly building, also traditionally to decide local issues. In early medieval Britain, such h ...
(sometimes written as Moat Hill) * Neck ditch


References


External links

{{Authority control Castle architecture Masonry Water