Endnote 7 – Rediscovered! The Land of Geshur

If the stored grain filled each room completely up to 8 feet in height, the total capacity of the granary would have been around 4,800 cubic feet. How many people this amount could sustain depends on daily consumption, but we estimate that it could have fed at least 300 people for a year. In actually, the collapsed sun-dried mudbrick that fell from on top of the stone foundations suggests the walls were somewhat higher. The massive stone construction of the lower portion of the walls could have supported a mudbrick superstructure as high as the top of the contiguous fortification wall, the height of which was probably 25 feet or more. Consequently, the amount of grain stored must have been considerably greater than the above figure. For the use of Roman and Egyptian source materials to calculate amounts of daily grain consumption, see Kemp, “Large Middle Kingdom Granary,” pp. 130ff.