What are the differences between barbacana y matacán?
El parapeto almenado se compone de una serie de almenas y barbacanas. En cada almena hay un matacán para disparar flechas.
What are the differences between barbacana y matacán?
3 Answers
Querida zhmelissa:
I seem to have caused you to misunderstand something in my answer. I have seen your entries in the forum many times and I know that you look in every and other places for an answer before you ask for help in the forum. I have admired you for that. I'm sorry if I did not let you know that I am aware that you research before you enquire.
Let me try again to answer your enquiry.
I think a matacán is better explained using the picture that appears on Wikipedia's English page for Machicolation. That picture looks up the tower wall to the top of the tower. At the level where the first outcrop juts out from the tower, you will see a series of evenly spaced holes in the floor of the part of the tower that juts out. Those holes are the matacánes. They are a hole under the feet of the castles defenders that can be used to drop rocks, stones, hot oils, fire or other weapons on an attacking enemy force. These matacánes may be found all around the battlements of a castle or even as a part of one or more barbacanas.
Then what is a barbacana? It is a first line of defence for a castle. Here is what Wikipedia says about a barbicana:
A barbican is a fortified outpost or gateway, such as an outer defense to a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Usually barbicans were situated outside the main line of defences and connected to the city walls with a walled road
As I said earlier, matacánas might be built into the floor of the barbacanas. If you look at the pictures on the Wikipedia pages for barbicana, you must bring your imagination into play to see that the barbicanas are certainly the first fortification that an enemy must overcome and are also almost separated from the main core of the castle.
I hope this reply is more help than my first one. If you think of matacánes as holes in the floor and barbicanas as structures, it might help you to understand, Please forgive my earlier not very helpful answer.
Saludos/Best regards,
Moe
¡Hola!, zhmelissa:
I did an internet search and found there is a Wikipedia page for each of "Barbicana" and "Matacán". Here are the pages. Remember that if you look down the left side of each page you can see how to switch the page from Spanish to English. I know that English is not your mother tongue, but switching between languages may help to understamd what is beig said.
Saludos/Best regards,
Moe
Dear Moe, I did use the translation before i post each question here in SD. The reason why I post this question after using the translation is because , after using the translation I am still confusing. I don´t just post my questions here without doing anything, I do it after I checked google and all the dictionaries. But thanks for your answer.
