Cow Pies

Cow pie castle walls

Research for my Hattusa book is going interesting places. Like cow pie castles.

"Bleh!" You say.

In the winter, when trees are few and far between, cow pies do the trick. They're a good fuel source for heating or for a cooking fire.

July is the time when Anatolian peasants are out molding the dung into squares, and creating the cow pie reserves that will get them through the winter. They stack them in seemingly decorative patterns, but the reason for the design is simple: cow pies need to dry. Different villages have different ways of stacking. Some make round towers, others create walls.

Just another neat detail I hope to incorporate in my book, when I get around to writing it.

In the meantime, I'm off to revise the Nemrut sci-fi some more.