To my surprise, excavations at Afrasiab(ancient Greek Maracandaor modernSamarkand in Uzbekistan Samarkand
This square building made of mud-bricks is
characteristic for Hellenistic times. Archaeologists have determined that it
was destroyed by a violent fire, which has baked the bricks and the cereals
stored inside, transforming the content in a multicoloured ash dust. The heat
was so fierce that the bricks have intensively hardened and at the same time
has vitrified the soil as well as the lower parts of the walls, which at the
same time led to their excellent preservation.
This granary was found at a depth of 8.5 meters , underneath
successive occupation layers all the way to the mosque that was under
construction in 1220 when Genghis Khan
massacred a great deal of the population and destroyed Samarkand’s irrigation
canals. This vast complex was divided in eight separate rooms of 11.5x5.5m each
set in two rows of four. Much attention was given to the construction of these
storage rooms, whose walls were made of mud brick squares of 38x38cm and probably
stood 2.5 meters
high of which today some 2
meters are still preserved. It seems that the roof of
this granary simply collapsed at the time of the fire, together with the now
parched remains of the supporting beams.
It is clear that this building was used to
store perishable food. Remains of millet and barley have been identified in
four of these rooms, where millet was simply thrown on the unpaved floor.
Analysis have shown that this was the so-called panicum miliaceum, i.e. a common millet generally found between
northern China and western Europe and is grown on irrigated land. It is a
cereal that does not germinate, meaning that it could easily be stored for up
to ten years. This millet played a fundamental role in people’s food staple in Central Asia and would have been ideally used in garrison
life or as a life-saving food in case of siege. It is evident that barley and
millet were the major food supplies for soldiers, although in Achaemenid times
the barley-gruel was eaten by soldiers and slaves as well as horses, and the
rations were counted. The barley, however, is thought to have been used more as
fodder for the horses rather than to feed humans, and it seems to have been
stored in sacks. In many places the floors and the walls were covered with
ashes in shades of green, blue, orange, red, yellow and grey, which may refer
to other kinds of food - yet unidentified. It has been calculated that the
granary of Afrasiabcould hold as much as 75 tons of cereals.
Further investigation has established that the
fire was a very fierce one and researchers don’t exclude a possible explosion
caused by a high concentration of gas as we know to happen in modern grain-silos.
There are also indications that attempts were made to extinguish the fire or to
contain it; by letting the roof collapse they hoped to kill the fire – to no
avail as the blaze devastated the entire storage building.
Typical for early Greek occupation in Afrasiab is the use of square bricks as in the granary which matches similar
bricks found in the inner gallery of the ancient rampart and the posterns of
the so-called gate of Bukhara Samarkand
This information is completing my earlier post: Afrasiab, ancient Samarkand where I’m concentrating on Alexander spending the winter of 328/327 BC within these walls and on the circumstances leading to the murder of Cleitos.
This information is completing my earlier post: Afrasiab, ancient Samarkand where I’m concentrating on Alexander spending the winter of 328/327 BC within these walls and on the circumstances leading to the murder of Cleitos.