salt trade
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A salt road (also known as a salt route, salt way, saltway, or salt trading route) refers to any of the
prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...
and
historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
trade routes by which essential salt was transported to regions that lacked it. From the Bronze Age (in the
2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...
) fixed transhumance routes appeared, like the Ligurian ''drailles'' that linked the maritime Liguria with the ''alpages'', long before any purposely-constructed roadways formed the overland routes by which salt-rich provinces supplied salt-starved ones.


Roads

The '' Via Salaria'', an ancient
Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...
in Italy, eventually ran from Rome (from Porta Salaria in the Aurelian Walls) to ''Castrum Truentinum'' ( Porto d'Ascoli) on the
Adriatic coast The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to the ...
- a distance of . A modern road by this name, part of the SS4 highway, runs from Rome to
Osteria Nuova An osteria (, plural ''osterie'') in Italy was originally a place serving wine and simple food. Lately, the emphasis has shifted to the food, but menus tend to be short, with the emphasis on local specialities such as pasta and grilled meat o ...
in
Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...
. The
Old Salt Route The Old Salt Route was a medieval trade route in Northern Germany, one of the ancient network of salt roads which were used primarily for the transport of salt and other staples. In Germany it was referred to as ''Alte Salzstraße''. Salt was ...
, about , was a medieval route in northern Germany, linking Lüneburg (in Lower Saxony) with the port of Lübeck (in Schleswig-Holstein), which required more salt than it could produce itself. Lüneburg, first mentioned in the 10th century, grew rich on the salterns surrounding the town. Traders shipped salt via Lauenburg, to Lübeck, which supplied all the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Lüneburg and its salt were major factors of power and wealth of the
Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...
. After a long period of prosperity, its importance declined after 1600. The last of the salt mines was closed in 1980, ending the thousand-year tradition. In medieval Bosnia, via Narenta was used as a trade route between Podvisoki and Dubrovnik. It is recorded that 600 horses delivered around 1500
modius Modius may refer to: * an Ancient Roman units of measurement#Dry measure, ancient Roman unit for dry measures, (8.73 L) roughly equivalent to a peck * a Ancient Roman units of measurement#Area, medieval Roman unit for area, approximately 40 acres ...
of salt to Podvisoki. In France, the salt route was longer than a
portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...
between navigable streams. Salt unloaded at the ports of Nice and Ventimiglia could travel by two salt roads leading away from the coastal area, from Nice up the Vésubie valley, via
Saint-Martin-Vésubie Saint-Martin-Vésubie (; Vivaro-Alpine dialect, Vivaro-Alpine: ''Sant Martin de Lantosca'') is a Communes of France, commune of the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region in Southe ...
at the head of the valley, or from Ventimiglia inland through the Roya Valley, over the Col de Tende pass and into Piedmont. In Ethiopia blocks of salt, called ''
amoleh Salt, also referred to as table salt or by its chemical formula NaCl (sodium chloride), is an ionic compound made of sodium and chloride ions. All life depends on its chemical properties to survive. It has been used by humans for thousands of y ...
'', were carved from the salt pans of the
Afar Depression The Afar Triangle (also called the Afar Depression) is a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction, which is part of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The region has disclosed fossil specimens of the very earliest hominins; tha ...
, especially around
Lake Afrera Lake Afrera (in Italian Lake Giuletti) is a hypersaline lake in northern Ethiopia. Located in Kilbet Rasu, Afar Region, it is one of the lakes of the Danakil Depression. According to its entry in Lakenet, it has a surface area of , although anothe ...
, then carried by camel west to
Atsbi Atsbi (Ge'ez: ኣጽቢ) (officially known as Atsbi Endaselase Ge'ez: ኣጽቢ እንዳስላሴ ) is a town in Tigray Region, Tigray, Ethiopia. Located in the Misraqawi Zone, Misraqawi (Eastern) Zone of the Tigray Region, about 50 kilometers nor ...
and Ficho in the
highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...
, whence traders distributed them throughout the rest of Ethiopia, as far south as the Kingdom of Kaffa. Before the People's Republic of China annexed Tibet and closed the borders in the 1950s,
salt trade A salt road (also known as a salt route, salt way, saltway, or salt trading route) refers to any of the prehistoric and historical trade routes by which essential salt was transported to regions that lacked it. From the Bronze Age (in the 2nd m ...
between Nepal and Tibet crossed passes through the Himalayas such as the gorges of the upper Karnali and Gandaki rivers. Caravans of pack animals brought rice up from Nepal's Terai and lower hills in exchange for salt from
dry lakes A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceeds recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline c ...
on the Tibetan Plateau. In the United Kingdom an ancient road known as the Salt Way runs from
Droitwich Spa Droitwich Spa (often abbreviated to Droitwich ) is an historic spa town in the Wychavon district in northern Worcestershire, England, on the River Salwarpe. It is located approximately south-west of Birmingham and north-east of Worcester, Engl ...
, passing Banbury and onto
Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end ...
. The Salt Way is managed by the Salt Way Activity Group. The Vienna Road, later also known as Southern Railway (Austria) that succeeded the road as a railway connection between Vienna and Trieste, was a salt road connecting the two cities via
Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
,
Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...
and Ljubljana. While salt was not the primary good traded on this road (roughly 7% of the trade), the historic salt connection is a significant part of Slovenian culture and tradition due to a folk hero Martin Krpan - a story based on oral tradition taking place on the Vienna Road. In medieval Japan, the landlocked and mountainous
Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...
was supplied with salt by two routes collectively called
Shio no Michi was an old '' kaidō'', or road, in ancient Japan and was used to transport salt from the ocean to the inland central Honshū. In the Middle Ages, salt was brought both from the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean to Shinano Province for processin ...
.Shio no Michi wo Tabi Suru
. Salt Road Museum. Accessed December 20, 2007.


Rivers and ports

The salt highways of Europe were the navigable rivers, where by medieval times shipments of salt coming upstream passed rafts and log-trains of timber, which could only be shipped downstream. And even along Europe's coasts, once long-distance trade was revived in the 11th century, the hot and sunny south naturally outproduced the wet north. By the Late Middle Ages the expanding fishing fleets of the Low Countries required more salt than could be produced locally; the balance was made up with salt from the Iberian Peninsula: "The United Provinces could have been brought to their knees if their supplies of salt had been blocked at the end of the sixteenth century. Spain did no more than dream of this," Fernand Braudel has written. In Ming
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, salt as well as rice was shipped from south to north, along the Imperial Canal as far as Beijing.


Salterns and saltpans

In France, a major source of marine salt with access to expansive hinterlands in need of it was the wetlands region in Languedoc called the Camargue; from the salt pans called ''salines'', convoys of boatloads of salt could be carried up the Rhone to Seyssel where it had to be off-loaded and carried by
mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...
train inland to the little village of Regonfle near Geneva, where it rejoined a waterway. Of the early modern period in Europe, Fernand Braudel remarked that in spite of the flux and reflux of economics:
"no salt mine was ever abandoned and the scale of the equipment needed put these mines in the hands of merchants from very early days. Salt-marshes on the other hand, were exploited by artisanal methods: the merchants took control only of transport and marketing, both in Setúbal in Portugal and in Peccais in Languedoc. Salt marketing was probably quite big business along the Atlantic seabord or the Rhône valley."
The vast interior of Poland was salt-starved, its maritime districts lying under rainy skies and fronting the Baltic Sea. By medieval times the process of mining for fossil salt supplemented the age-old techniques of evaporating sea salt in tidal pans. By the 14th century, at Wieliczka near Kraków, Braudel reports that peasant extraction of salt from brine evaporated in large shallow iron pans had been eliminated by the early industrialisation of salt mining. "Galleries and shafts were now dug to a depth of 300 metres, and enormous winches powered by teams of horses brought blocks of salt to the surface. At its peak, production stood at 40,000 tons a year and the mines employed 3,000 workers. By 1368, the cooperation of the Polish state had been obtained.". Since pre-Inca times, salt has been obtained in Maras, Peru, by evaporating salty water from a local subterranean stream.


See also

* History of salt *
Timeline of international trade The history of international trade chronicles notable events that have affected the trade between various countries. In the era before the rise of the nation state, the term 'international' trade cannot be literally applied, but simply means ...


References


Notes


Bibliography

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External links

* {{Authority control History of salt Trade routes Ancient roads and tracks