Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
BAT'TLEMENT. Deut 22:8. A wall, parapet, or other structure around the flat roofs of Eastern houses, designed as a partition from an adjoining building or to prevent persons from falling off. The law required a battlement to be built upon every house. It is sometimes used in a more extensive sense to denote the fortifications of a city. Jer 5:10. A traveller says that at Aleppo, where the houses join each other, the battlements are so low that he could walk over the tops of a dozen houses without interruption. See Dwelling.