In 2014, a group of 1,500-year-old state-owned huge grain storages were unearthed in Luoyang, Henan province.
The 700 storages were found to be built during the Sui Dynasty (581-619), by then Luoyang was Chinese capital and Henan.
The grains stored in the warehouses would be released during the times of crises, such as feminine due to natural disaster or social turmoil.
Each of the storage is about 10 metres in diameter and 10 metres in depth. The marks on the internal walls prove bamboo mats were used as wall cladding materials for grain protection purposes.
COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS
Plautus Satire
Marks on the walls “prove” this was used to store grains? Hardly.
All Things Chinese
Marks on walls prove the internal walls were clad with bamboo mats. I believe they employed other techniques to prove these structures were used to store grains.
Plautus Satire
How do marks on the wall prove bamboo mats?
All Things Chinese
They found the remains of wood ash (the 3rd photo) and the mark of bamboo mats (the 4th photo) on the surface of the internal walls. Wood ash and bamboo mats were commonly used to paint and clad the internal walls of grain storages in ancient China. Of course, these are just what I can interpreter from the photos; they must have other evidence to support their claim that these were used to store grains by the government of the Sui Dynasty, such as the remains of grains.
Plautus Satire
How much seed was found?
All Things Chinese
I have no idea.
Plautus Satire
so no seed was found? How disappointing.
All Things Chinese
I don’t know if there are remains of grains to be found. Maybe they do. But to my mind, the physical form of these 700 structures and the special internal decoration they had are strong enough evidence to indicate they were used as grain and seed storages because that is how a typical government grain storage was designed and built for thousands of years in China as known from the official documents.
Alexey R
The government-controlled emergency grain storages existed in China more than 2000 years ago. They supposed to provide grains in case of famine and to stabilise grain prices. Sort of early socialist policies. The scale of it impressive because the West match the same capacity in the 19th century with the invention of grain silos elevator.