Salt has played a very significant role in human history. As soon as humans learned that it was able to preserve food, salt’s value increased to the point that it changed life as it was known. It is almost humorous to think that what most of us regard as a condiment today was once traded ounce for ounce for gold and a way of raising finance. It was so sought after that people trekked for hundreds or even thousands of miles to transport it to civilisations. Wars were fought after it, high taxes were placed on it, cities were built when a significant deposit of it was discovered, and rumour has it that Roman soldiers were paid with it.

Salt played a key role; it enabled food to be preserved for long periods of time. This meant that people could travel far away from sources of food. Civilization was expanded. It also meant that food could be preserved for winter months.

Going as far back as the Assyrian Empire, salt was used by armies to ruin the ground left behind by the attacking army. This practice is known as “salting the Earth.” As the Roman Empire rose in strength and power, roads were built specifically to transport salt into their cities. An example of this is the Via Salaria winding from Rome down to the Adriatic Sea. The value of and dependence on Salt was passed from empire to empire, and kingdom to kingdom, as they rose and fell. It was a great source of raising money.

Each chapter of European history, from ancient Greece, all the way to the 19th Century, reveals the magnitude of salt’s crucial economic role. Traditions of salt making are found all over the Old World.

16th Century Spain was bankrupted by the Dutch Revolt, a tide turning factor in that being the Dutch’s blockade of the Iberian salt works. The French tax on salt, known as the “gabelle,” was so hated, it was significant in bringing on the French Revolution. Salt was the reason for Poland’s 16th Century strength, and the German’s gaining the upper hand in the “salt market” was the reason for Poland declining in power.

Salt mines influenced where a city would be built, and the salt gave the city a strong type of currency with which to trade with other cities. The city of Liverpool, for example, became a noteworthy city because of the Cheshire salt mines. In the 19thCentury much of the world’s salt was exported from Liverpool’s port.

American history also has a salt trail. Part of the reason for Lewis and Clark’s great expedition was finding a great reserve of salt.

To this day salt is still relied on for many of the same things it has been since the beginning of human history, and many new uses have been found for it as well. However, we can now harvest it in abundance, and we have learned that it is one of the Earth’s most abundant resources, so its economic value has drastically decreased.