Granary

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Granary

A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain

Cereal

Cereals, or cereal grains, are mostly Poaceae cultivated for their edible brans or fruit seeds . Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple foods....
or animal feed

Animal feed

Animal feed may refer to:*Compound feed, commercial pelleted food produced in a feed mill and fed to domestic livestock*Fodder, food given to domestic livestock, including plants cut and carried to them...
. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery

Pottery

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A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain

Cereal

Animal feed

Pottery

Pottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries....
is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food from mice and other animals.

From ancient times grain has been stored in bulk. The oldest granary yet found dates back to 9500 BC and is located in the Jordan Valley

Jordan River

The Jordan River is a river in Southwest Asia which flows into the Dead Sea. It is considered to be one of the world's most sacred rivers. It is 251 kilometers long....
, followed by Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh

Mehrgarh, one of the most important Neolithic sites in archaeology, lies on what is now the "Kachi plain" of today's Balochistan , Pakistan. It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia."...
in the Indus Valley from 6000 BC. The ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ians made a practice of preserving grain in years of plenty against years of scarcity. The climate of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
being very dry, grain could be stored in pits for a long time without sensible loss of quality. The silo pit, as it has been termed, has been a favorite way of storing grain from time immemorial in all oriental lands. In Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
and Persia, usurers used to buy up wheat

Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
or barley

Barley

Barley is an annual plant cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food, as well as the making of alcoholic beverages beer and whisky....
when comparatively cheap, and store it in hidden pits against seasons of dearth. In Malta

Malta

Malta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed country European microstates microstate in the European Union....
a relatively large stock of wheat was preserved in some hundreds of pits (silos) cut in the rock. A single silo stored from 60 to 80 tons of wheat, which, with proper precautions, kept in good condition for four years or more.

Simple storage granaries raised up on four or more posts appeared in the Yangshao culture

Yangshao culture

The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China. The Yangshao culture is dated from around 5000 BC to 3000 BC....
in China and after the onset of intensive agriculture in the Korean peninsula during the Mumun pottery period

Mumun pottery period

The Mumun pottery period is an archaeological era in Prehistoric Korea that dates to approximately 1500-300 BC. This period is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially 850-550 B.C....
(c. 1000 B.C.) and in the Japanese archipelago during the Final Jomon/Early Yayoi period

Yayoi period

The is an era in the history of Japan from about 500 BC to 300 AD. It is named after the neighbourhood of Tokyo where Archaeology first uncovered artifacts and features from that era....
s (c. 800 B.C.). In the archaeological vernacular of Northeast Asia, these features are lumped with those that may have also functioned as residences and together are called 'raised floor buildings'.

Towards the close of the 19th century, warehouses specially intended for holding grain began to multiply in Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the List of islands by area, and the largest in Europe. With a population of 58.9 million people it is List of islands by population....
, but North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
is the home of great granaries, known there as grain elevator

Grain elevator

Grain elevators are buildings or complexes of buildings for storage and shipment of grain. They were invented in 1842 in Buffalo, New York, by Joseph Dart, who first developed a steam-powered mechanism, called a marine leg, for scooping grain out of the hulls of ships directly into storage silos....
s. There are climatic difficulties in the way of storing grain in Great Britain on a large scale, but these difficulties have been largely overcome. To preserve grain in good condition it must be kept as much as possible from moisture and heat

Heat

In physics and thermodynamics, heat is any transfer of energy from one body or thermodynamic system to another due to a difference in temperature....
. New grain when brought into a warehouse has a tendency to release moisture. Bacteria are more active in this condition and can heat the grain. If the heating is allowed to continue the quality of the grain suffers. An effectual remedy is to turn out the grain in layers, not too thick, on a floor, and to keep turning it over so as to aerate it thoroughly. Grain can thus be conditioned for storage in silos.

Granary

See also