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E-book Rural Granaries in Northern Gaul (Sixth Century BCE – Fourth Century CE) : From Archaeology to Economic History

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Penilaian

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Compared with other pre-industrial societies, a rather high percentage of the Roman population in the Gallic and Germanic provinces was not involved in agrarian production during the High Empire. Rural produce was needed to feed soldiers and the inhabitants of vici, small towns and cities. To maintain this system the Gallo-Roman villae – the rural settlements whose economic base was the production of agrarian goods – had to produce a surplus of food and especially of grain. Although the villae were of fundamental importance for the Roman economy, ancient sources do not give any information about the extent of the grain production of Gallo-Roman villae.Horrea, found among the buildings of several villae, can give us an indica-tion about the amount of grain that was stored in a villa and therefore at the disposal of the owner. The problem is that there are no ancient data about the storage capacity of granaries in the Roman north-west provinces. The ques-tion of how the grain was stored in horrea is disputed among historians and archaeologists. Some scholars say that grain was stored in sacks, while others claim that it was stored in bulk directly on the granary floor (Rickman 1971, 85; Gentry 1976, 18; Schubert 2016, 336–38; Blöck 2016, 94 note 580). This second opinion is generally accepted. In most cases the capacity of a granary is then calculated by multiplying its inner surface area by a given height for the heap of grain. Often no explanation is offered for the height (Manning 1975, 115–18; Willems 1988, 11; Heimberg 2002–2003, 128 note 30; Schucany 2006, 197; Fer-dière 2015, 39). Calculations with storage in sacks have also been put forward (Gentry 1976, 25–28; Strickland 1987; Schubert 2016, 338–47). Finally, most calculations assume that Roman horrea possessed only one floor for grain storage.In my opinion, these calculations lack a sound basis and produce values for storage capacities that are far too high. Good insights into how Roman grain storage may have worked are offered by medieval and early modern granaries. Such buildings existed especially in monasteries but also in cities and on rural estates. Like their Roman counterparts, they served as storage spaces for grain produced in a pre-industrial (agrarian) setting. Since the late medieval and early modern granaries had more or less the same function and were of the same size as Roman horrea, it makes sense to take their capacity values as a reference for Roman granaries rather than using more or less random heap heights.For early modern granaries, we possess data both on how grain was stored and on the storage capacities of granaries. So grain was to be stored in bulk in heaps no higher than 90 cm (fig. 1.1, see the transcription of the Early Modern High German text in Rudolf 1989a, 18; Krünitz 1788, 851). But the height of new-ly harvested grain heaps was even lower, from 30 to 60 cm (Krünitz 1788, 741, 841 and 851). This was necessary for proper ventilation of the grain in order to avoid decomposition and fermentation. Indeed, fermentation raises the grain temperature and may cause fires. From the medieval and early modern docu-mentation on granaries, we also learn that space was needed for the delivery of the grain and for regularly moving it around (shovelling) in order to ensure proper ventilation (Krünitz 1788, 771–75, 789–90, 840–44; Johnson 1987, 164). Finally, these sources tell us that grain was stored in sacks only for transport (Krünitz 1788, 854–56).

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

930 MAR r

Penerbit

USA : BRILL., 2019

Deskripsi Fisik

195 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789004389045

Klasifikasi

930

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

Vol. 8

Subjek

History of Ancient World to 499

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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