The use of salt during ancient civilizations

Historically, salt is one of the oldest materials used in man's food. Egyptian pickled fish was highly prized, both locally and by Greeks. Numerous tomb illustrations further suggest that salted mullet roe, a Near Eastern favorite, was already popular in the days of the Pharaohs.

The papyrus Ebers (1600 BC) mentions many salt prescriptions especially for making laxatives and antiinfectives. They were dispensed in either liquid, suppository or ointment form. The ancient Egyptian papyrus Smith, which is thought to refer to the famous master-builder and doctor Imhotep of the third pre-Christian millennium, recommends salt for the treatment of an infected chest wound.

A Sumerian proverb also linked salt with bread as basic foods. Salt was also part of the daily ration (along with barley and dried fish) given by an Akkadian temple to workers.

In the ancient Greece, slaves were bought with salt. For Greeks, it was a sacred commodity and was used as a part of offerings to Gods. Greek medicine, primarily the healing methods of Hippocrates (460 BC), made common use of salt. Salt-based remedies were thought to have expectorant powers. A mixture of water, salt, and vinegar was used as an emetic.

In the early days of the Roman Republic roads were built with the purpose to make salt to get to Rome faster. Via Salaria linked Rome to the Adriatic Sea which being shallower than the Tyrrhenian Sea was more productive although farther away.

In ancient Rome, soldiers and officials were reimbursed in the form of a 'salarium' i.e. salt money—from which our word salary is derived.

Pliny mentioned that dry and bitter salt not only stimulated humans’ appetite, but that of grazing animals as well, so that they yielded more milk and better cheese. In a scientific study, both indirect and direct salt supplements were shown to be beneficial for milk yield and fat content.
The use of salt during ancient civilizations

Salt: The White Gold

One of the most valuable trade items from earliest times was salt. It is not a condiment like pepper or mustard or ketchup, but a mineral, NaCl, sodium chloride.

Salt is found almost everywhere, although this has been known only as a result of scientific advance in the past two hundred years.

Salt, called “white gold” could be found in the ground, the product of elaborate salt mines.

The Chinese were the first to discover that salt could be found deep under the earth’s surface at depths of several hundred meters or more.

The Chinese government in 2000 BC was the first to use salt to increase its revenue. In 645 BC, the Chinese state of Ch’i monopolized the salt industry and became prosperous.

By 300 BC, its monopoly had extended over both domestically produced and imported salt.

As long as 500 AD, the Chinese began to drill for brine a technique that was only discovered in Europe in the eighteenth century and was not known in Africa until the twentieth century.

The other oldest ways of obtaining salt was by boiling or evaporating sea water. This was done in ancient Egypt; in ancient Gaul (the Romans’ name for France): in France in the eighteenth century, to avoid paying the salt tax; and in India in the twentieth century as a way to gain independence from England and the British salt monopoly.

People of the ancient world, ate very salty food, particularly the Romans. Salt was also one of other reason for the Roman conquest of Gaul.

The prosperity of the Phoenician trading posts of the western Mediterranean had already been built on salt.

The Phoenicians were great producers of pickles food and garum and Rome could not ignore such prosperity once she was powerful enough to make it her own.

This is a very expensive and labor intensive way to get salt compared to mining rock salt.

Currently in the United States, between two and three million tons of salt are mined each year from mine that runs under the center of the United States, from Detroit and Cleveland south to Louisiana.
Salt: The White Gold

Salt: The History

Salt: The History
Sodium chloride or common salt is the chemical compound NaCl, composed of the elements sodium and chloride. Salt occurs naturally in many parts of the world as the mineral, halite and as mixed evaporates in salt lakes. Seawater has lots of salt; it contains an average of 2.7% (by weight) NaCl, or 78 million metric tons per cubic kilometer, an inexhaustible supply (note: seawater also contains other dissolved solids; salt represents about 77% of the Total Dissolved Solids). Underground salt deposits are found in both bedded, sedimentary layers and domal deposits.

Salt served as money at various times and places, and it has been the cause of bitter warfare. Offering bread and salt to visitors, in many cultures, is traditional etiquette. There are records of the importance of salt in commerce in medieval times and earlier, in some places like the Sahara.

Some 2,700 years B.C.-about 4,700 years ago-there was published in China the Peng-Tzao-Kan-Mu, probably the earliest known treatise on pharmacology. A major portion of this writing was devoted to a discussion of more than 40 kinds of salt. Salt production has been important in for two millennia or more. Nomads spreading westward were known to carry salt.

Egyptian art from as long ago as 1450 B.C. records the salt-making. A far-flung trade in ancient Greece involving exchange of salt for slaves gave rise to the expression, "not worth his salt." The Romans were prodigious builders of saltworks as well as other vital infrastructure. Special salt rations given early Roman soldiers were known as "salarium argentum," the forerunner of the English word "salary". During the late Roman Empire and throughout the Middle Ages salt was a precious commodity carried along the salt road into the heart land of Germanic tribes. From the Latin "sal," for example, come such other derived words as "sauce" and "sausage." Salt was an important trading commodity carried by explorers. Countries like Japan without salt deposits feel disadvantaged.

Salt has played a vital part in religious ritual in many cultures, symbolizing immutable, incorruptible purity. There are more than 30 references to salt in the Bible and both the Bible and the Talmud contain insights into salt's cultural significance in Jewish society. In Old Testament, Mosaic Law called salt to be added to burn animal scarifies. While in New Testament Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." He added that if the salt loses its flavor, it is good for nothing but to be trampled. Jesus said this in order to show his disciples how valuable they were and this saying is commonly used today to describe someone who is of particular value to society. And there are many other literary and religious references to salt, including use of salt on altars representing purity, and use of "holy salt" by the Unification Church.

Salt-making encompasses much of the history of Europe since Roman times. In the United Kingdom particularly in the Cheshire area, salt reigns supreme. Further north, Halle is Germany's "Salt City" and an "old salt route" connected German salt mines to shipping ports on the Baltic. Since medieval days, Luneburg has been Germany's "city of salt"; modern tourists also track ancient German salt history. Salt-making was important in the Adriatic/Balkans region as where Tuzla in Bosnia-Herzegovina is actually named for "tuz," the Turkish word for salt. The grand designs of Philip II of Spain came undone through the Dutch Revolt at the end of the 16th Century; one of the keys, according to Montesquieu, was the successful Dutch blockade of Iberian salt-works which led directly to Spanish bankruptcy. France, in fact, has a "salt road" along its Mediterranean coast.

During more modern times, it became more profitable to sell salted food than pure salt. Thus sources of food to salt went hand in hand with salt making.
Salt: The History

History of Salt

Food History
Hunters in Greenland ate no salt until they were introduced to it by whaling Europeans in the 17th century. Like our prehistoric forebears, Lapps, Samoyeds, Kirghiz, Bedouin, Masai and Zulus used to consume all the sodium they needed from the animals and fish they ate.

It is to be believed that salt eating developed as humans learned how to keep animals and grow crops in the years after 10,000 BC. As the proportion of meat in their diet fell, people had to find salt for themselves and for their domesticated animals. Salt has another crucial property that made it important for the development of human society.

By 2000 BC, people knew that adding salt to food stopped it going off. Salt was used to preserve meat, fish and vegetables, and to create delicacies such as salted olives, which added variety to the diet.

Until the 19th century, the most important use of salt was in food, though it was also used to treat leather, dye textiles and in making pottery. In the 19th century, chemists discovered ways of using salt to make a whole range of new chemicals. Manufacturers today claim there are more than 14,000 uses for salt.

This industrial demand for salt caused a growth in the industry and much more extensive deep mining and drilling of salt. Salt shortages effectively ended by the middle of the 19th century.
Food History