While living in Taiwan, I was told by a Chinese man that the Great Wall is held together by glutenous, sticky rice and eggs. Apparently it's an extremely sticky mixture and is strong enough to hold large stone bricks together. I've read elsewhere that at least part of the wall was put together with this mixture, though as different parts of the wall were built at different periods, not all of it was put together this way. Is it true?
Also, for science, would there be a way to know how this mixture was put together, i.e. how many parts rice to how many parts egg? Also, was it just the whites, or also the yolks? And lastly, were they chicken eggs or eggs from a different bird?
If this is the case in some section, I am not aware of the practice nor any record that might reflect the practice. The series of walls that have been amalgamated into "The Great Wall" were originally rammed earth structures (densely packed earth), and during the Ming dynasty massive upgrades took place, replacing the rammed earth structures with brick and stone. Some of the sections are more representative of the original Ming sections, like Simatai vs Jinshanling
