Floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement
Machicolation
Mâchicoulis, Piombatoio
A box-machicolation of the Tal-Wejter Tower, in Birkirkara, Malta[1]
General information
Location
Europe, Middle East and North Africa
Technical details
Material
Stone, sometimes wood
A machicolation (French: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime[2] or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall.[3] A smaller version found on smaller structures is called a box-machicolation.
^Darke, Diana (2020). Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN 9781787383050.
^Medieval castle SIEGES in depth
^Jaccarini, C. J. (2002). "Il-Muxrabija: Wirt l-Izlam fil-Gzejjer Maltin" (PDF). L-Imnara (in Maltese). 7 (1). Ghaqda Maltija tal-Folklor: 17–22.
A machicolation (French: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such...
two or three courses projecting over one another; those carrying the machicolations of English and French castles had four courses. In modern chimney construction...
Kings of Desmond, and dates from 1446. The Blarney Stone is among the machicolations of the castle. The castle originally dates from before 1200, when a...
not be able to scale to those heights so larger windows were safe. Machicolations were stone structures at the top of the castle protruding out from the...
included battlemented gateways, crow-stepped gables, pointed turrets and machicolations. The style was popular across Scotland and was applied to many relatively...
gatehouses, and comprised several elements: crenellations, hoardings, machicolations, and loopholes. Crenellation is the collective name for alternating...
natural topography. Many were also inherited from the Fatimids like machicolations and round towers, while other techniques were developed simultaneously...
Commons has media related to Portcullises. Drawbridge Hoarding (castles) Machicolation Sally port Yett Harper, Douglas. "portcullis". Online Etymology Dictionary...
Boiling oil was rarely used because of its cost. Similar holes, called machicolations, were often located in the curtain walls of castles, fortified manor...
included such apparently anachronistic features as a drawbridge and machicolation, which were still common in military architecture of the period. In...
Castle of Capdepera, Mallorca, Spain Carcassonne, France Defensive walls Machicolation Friar, Stephen (2003). The Sutton Companion to Castles, Sutton Publishing...
massive circular bastions at intervals, with battlements, embrasures, machicolations and string courses. Four gates were provided on its four sides, one...
Renaissance windows, the talking shield (a Galceran, a bush) and the machicolation over the main door. Can Salvador de la Plaça Splendid building with...
multiple watchtowers, the art of the main gate itself. With a wall with no machicolations to fire at the enemy and no fortifications, Malang Gad is one of the...
walkways on the inside, a crenellated parapet with merlons, and projecting machicolations from which missiles could be dropped on besiegers. The upper walls also...
and gates. Access to the bridge could be resisted with missiles from machicolations above or arrow slits in flanking towers. The bridge would be raised...
cone heads. The bastions flanking the gatehouse has arrow-loops and machicolation chutes through which boiling oil could be poured onto offending raiders...
jettying is rarely used. See for example 945 Madison Avenue in New York. Machicolation Overhang (architecture) Corbels, brackets that may be under a jetty...
Crusades—and more dangerous to attackers—witness the increasing use of machicolations and murder-holes, as well the preparation of hot or incendiary substances...
objects could be dropped onto attackers or besiegers; these are known as machicolations. Battlements have been used for thousands of years; the earliest known...
chamber within the south wall which overlooks both hall and courtyard. A machicolation below the hall's north window allows objects to be dropped onto attackers...
be resupplied from the sea. It retains the earliest surviving stone machicolations in Britain and what historian Jeremy Ashbee has described as the "best...
could not shoot at them from nearby walls, until the development of machicolation. In contrast, the bastion fortress was a very flat structure composed...
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