At its most fortified in the 18th century Timișoara was bound up in three rings of star-shaped walls, with nine bastions and ditches that could be filled with water in times of siege.
The largest piece of these fortifications to make it to the 21st century is this bastion that was converted from a ravelin (one of the points of the stars) in the 1730s.
That change was made after the city was conquered from the Ottomans by the Habsburg Empire.
