 Salt: A sine qua non commodity-2
Part 2: History of salt---production, and trade.
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Salt production from a salt mine |
Herodotus, the Greek 'Father of History', wrote in 5th century BCE about the North African settlements of Libya in a ridge of sand with heaps of salt in huge lumps. The settlers built their houses with blocks of salt. Any worry about the house dissolving away in rain? No way - there was hardly any rain in these parts of Libya. The Roman historian Cassiodorus (490-583 CE) observed, “Mankind can live without gold but not without salt.” Salt, recognised as a necessity in the beginning of civilisation, was one of the first articles of trade.
Venice, located upon a number of sandy, barren, offshore islands near the head of the Adriatic Sea, grew to its economic glory through its monopoly in making salt. There were no other resources, not even drinking water. They made salt in the lagoons, caught fish, salted them and traded salt and salted fish with mainland dwellers for food, drink and lumber. Using lumber they built boats to go fishing.
Production and transport of salt gave rise to new cities and construction of roads. Salzburg - literally “city of salt” - in Austria was built around a salt production site. In ancient Italy a long road, via solaria, was built for the purpose of transportation of salt. Salt played a key role in the history of West Africa during the great trading empire of Mali centered in Timbuktu in the middle ages (vide infra).
Salt making was (and is) a major endeavour in all countries. It could make or break empires. The grand imperial design of Philip II of Spain was thwarted by the Dutch Revolt at the end of 16th century through a blockade of the Spanish Salt Works which bankrupted Spain.
Salt making also had a great influence in exploration of new lands. Portuguese and Spanish fleets traversing the ocean used the “wet” method of salting the fish (they caught) on board their vessels while the French and English used the “dry” method onshore which gave those fishermen a head-start in settling in North America. But for the practice of salting the fish the discovery of the New World would have been delayed.
Production:
The Chinese produced salt more than 4,000 years ago. A treatise was published describing the methods of extracting salt and converting it to usable form. During Biblical times, a primary source of salt was the Dead Sea. The salt obtained was crude – a mixture of salt and sand. Native Americans produced salt from salt springs more than 500 years before the arrival of the White man. Solid rock deposits of salt occur widely in North America, Europe and Central Asia.
In modern times salt is produced in two forms: “solar salt” and “rock salt”. Rock salt is produced by drilling into underground salt deposits and blasting the rocks. The blasted salt is crushed and screened to the desired size, hoisted to the surface, bagged, and shipped for further processing. In another procedure, water is pumped into underground salt deposits to make saturated salt solution (brine), and the brine is pumped out. The salt is then crystallised by vacuum evaporation. This procedure produces the white edible salt (free-flowing table salt).
In countries with a hot climate, solar salt is produced using the solar power of the sunlight and wind to evaporate salt water in large open ponds. The salt water can come from seawater, a salt lake, or a salt spring. The concentrated brine is heated under vacuum to produce crystalline salt.
Most of the world output of salt (>80 per cent) is consumed in the country in which it is produced.
Salt trade in the Middle Ages:
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Mali |
Around the beginning of the second millennium, Rome had a shortage of gold although it was required for the influence and power it wielded - hence the moniker “noble metal”. In the Western Sudan of Northwest Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, gold was found in abundance but not salt. Thus salt became the “noble mineral” for them. People in northwestern Africa worked out a trade pattern that provided salt to
Western Sudan and gold to Mediterranean Africa, from where Europe got its supply of gold.
The trade pattern was intricate, dangerous, secretive, and entrusted only to a few privileged non-European traders. The critical step in the trade, the direct exchange of the salt for gold, was called 'The Silent Trade'. The system used permitted the barter of gold for salt without a word being spoken (hence the name 'Silent') and without the trading groups even seeing each other. Nuggets of gold were placed next to stacks of salt slabs and were accepted or rejected by the parties without encountering personal contact. The introduction of the Arabian camel into northwestern Africa facilitated long-range trade from Mediterranean Africa with Sudan across the Sahara Desert.
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A salt caravan |
The legend of Timbuktu:
The most famous of the caravan routes stretched from the northern edge of the desert in Morocco to Timbuktu (8 miles north of the Niger River), on the southern edge of the desert.
About midway on this route were large salt deposits at Taghaza. Slaves dug the slabs of salt manually and loaded them on to camel backs for the transport to Timbuktu. A caravan roundtrip from Morocco to Timbuktu required about six months in those days.
 Timbuktu (also known as Tombouctou) was founded around 1100 CE as a seasonal camp by the Tuareg nomads on the banks of the Niger River. Timbuktu produced neither the salt nor the gold for the trade. It profited from both by acting as the center for the trade. The gold produced in the forests of present-day Guinea near the source of the Niger River was transported along the Niger River north to Timbuktu. The salt dug up from Taghaza salt beds was transported to Timbuktu on camelback. Gold and salt were exchanged in the markets of Timbuktu. By 1330 CE Timbuktu was part of the Mali Empire, which flourished from the profits of the gold-salt trade. In 1468 Timbuktu was conquered by Sonni Ali, the Songhay ruler, and reached an exalted status under the Songhay Empire. It became a haven for religious scholars serving as an intellectual and spiritual centre of the Islamic world. Great mosques, universities and libraries were built during that period, some of which still stand today.
 Timbuktu’s “salty golden age” came to an end in the late 16th century when the Moroccan invasion (1591 CE) destroyed the Songhay Empire. Portuguese navigation along the West African coast established a reliable naval trading route and further undercut the city’s commercial importance in the cross-Saharan trade route. Having lost the source of wealth, Timbuktu went into decline. In 1893 the French captured the city and partly restored the city from the desolate condition in which they found it.
In 1960 Timbuktu became part of the newly independent Republic of Mali. There is still some significant salt trade, a minimal relic of the past, that goes on through Timbuktu. Salt slabs cut from the mines in Taudenni (500 miles north of Timbuktu) are still loaded on camelbacks and transported south to Timbuktu. However, there is no more gold trade. The trip takes nearly two weeks through featureless sand dunes. From Timbuktu the salt is carried down river along the Niger to the salt markets in West Africa. The name 'Timbuktu' is etched forever in human history, a glory it acquired from a common commodity - salt.
To be continued…
Sethuraman Subramanian
subramaniansethu@hotmail.com
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