Tower

A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures.

Towers are specifically distinguished from "buildings" in that they are not built to be habitable but to serve other functions. The principal function is the use of their height to enable various functions to be achieved including: visibility of other features attached to the tower such clock towers; as part of a larger structure or device to increase the visibility of the surroundings as in a fortified building such as a castle; or as a structural feature as an integral part of a bridge.

Towers can be stand alone structures or be supported by adjacent buildings or can be a feature on top of a large structure or building.

Old English torr is from Latin turris via Old French tor. The Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the Illyrian toponym Βου-δοργίς. With the Lydian toponyms Τύρρα, Τύρσα, it has been connected with the ethnonym Τυρρήνιοι as well as with Tusci (from *Turs-ci), the Greek and Latin names for the Etruscans (Kretschmer Glotta 22, 110ff.)

Towers have been used by mankind since prehistoric times. The oldest known may be the circular stone tower in walls of Neolithic Jericho (8000 BC). Some of the earliest towers were ziggurats, which existed in Sumerian architecture since the 4th millennium BC. The most famous ziggurats include the Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur, built the 3rd millennium BC, and the Etemenanki, one of the most famous examples of Babylonian architecture. The latter was built in Babylon during the 2nd millennium BC and was considered the tallest tower of the ancient world.

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