Existing comment:
14,666,666 baskets x 1.5 cubic feet = 22,000,000 cubic feet
How Much Dirt?
Enormous amounts of dirt and effort were required to build the mounds. 55-pound basketloads of dirt were carried by human labor from borrow pits to mound building sites.
1.5 cubic feet of earth can be carried in a basket. A pickup truck holds 96 cubic feet. Monks Mound contains 22 million cubic feet of earth -- or 229,166 pickup trucks full -- or 14,666,666 baskets full.
It would take a classroom of 30 students, each filling 8 baskets of earth a day, 167 years to build Monks Mound. |