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ARCHEOLOGICZNE
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62
EGZEMPLARZ AUTORSKI
DOI: 10.34616/SSA.2020.62.123.126
MATEUSZ ŻMUDZIŃSKI
THE SALTY TASTE OF WEALTH AND POWER
Abstract: This paper deals with the role of salt from prehistory to the times of the Roman Empire.
We show that salt is a substance thanks to which fortunes were made and which united communi-ties, leading to the emergence of a state.
Keywords: wealth, economy, prehistory, Rome, salt
Famous Polish hetman Stefan Czarniecki said of himself „Jam nie z soli, ani z roli, tylko z tego – co mnie boli” [„I am not from salt, neither from agriculture: I am just from what makes me suffer”]. The national hero wanted to say that his position was due to nothing else but bravery and battlefields experience, when fighting Poland’s many foes. Unlike him, many other people were lucky to live in quieter times and to gain wealth and social position much safer, by more pleasant means. For thousands of years, in pre-industrial times, wealth and social position were often associated with soil cultivation, the exploitation of deposits, or trade of natural resources. One of these resources was salt. People who had access to salt deposits quickly made their fortunes. Today, salt is neither particularly valuable nor particularly important for the economy, but for centuries, including the periods studied by archaeologists, it had a significantly higher value. The wealth of the bishop of Salzburg, the foundation of a dedicated Salt Market in Wrocław, royal salt extraction regulations and monopolies, for example in Wieliczka, show that in quite recent times, salt was a highly valued item. Some decades ago, Tuaregs wandering through the Sahara still exchanged salt for gold and slaves, and salt prices were close to gold.
Archaeological research on the extraction of salt in the Black Sea areas brought up very interesting results. Salt turned out to be an essential element of the formation of a state in these areas as early as in the Chalcolithic age. The Provadija-Solnitsata settlement, in today's Bulgaria, was an important centre for the production of salt for trade (Nikolov, 2012:7‒27). Salt was extracted by boiling brine in ceramic vases, Mateusz Żmudziński, Instytut Archeologii, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, ul. Szewska 48, 50‒139, Wro-cław, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5771-6099, e-mail: mateusz.zmudzinski@uwr.edu.pl,
M. Żmudziński 124
in kilns. In the late Neolithic period, people began to produce salt by draining the brine to evaporation pits, but the peak of the development of the settlement took place in the next epoch, when a rich town expanded around the salt springs. It was surrounded by high walls for security. Their construction meant a huge effort in terms of work as well as money for the local community, but it happened to be paying off. The mighty walls seem to have provided a sufficiently effective protection for the population living there, as subsequent archaeological research has not shown that the place was ever captured or plundered. In the growing settlement, professional groups and social stratification appeared. The community was divided into richer groups who possessed expensive jewellery, and people of more modest condition. Salt was successfully exchanged for food, textiles and raw materials, and a community of merchants developed. Then the settlement depopulated in the late Chalcolithic. According to its discoverers, this was for natural causes, but the actual reason has not yet been clarified. Centuries later, people were willing to come back to the place and renewed salt extraction.
Salt deposits also were exploited in the late Neolithic and in the Chalcolithic in today’s Romania (Monah 2008: 87‒116). Two types of salt exploitation sites are distinguished there: the first ones in the Carpathian Arch, the second as sea salt deposits. Interestingly, the second group is also associated with deposits on the lower section of the Danube, even near today's Bucharest. These deposits were exploited for centuries and probably were one of the most important sources of wealth for the local populations. Major change came with the bloody Roman invasion of Dacia. In the Danubian Lowland, settlements were ruined, and for many years, large areas remained depopulated, lacking of manpower for agriculture or salt exploitation. The situation was different on the territories of Carpathian Roman provinces. There, the Romans continued salt mining in areas where the Dacians had done it previously (Żmudziński 2007: 106‒112). Salt was extracted in deep mines in Turda (Potaissa), in some open-air mines, and in brine evaporation pits (Wollmann 1996: 405‒417). The production was sold in the province or exported by boat upstream the Danube to Carnuntum, which was an important economic centre of the Danubian Amber Route. It also was transported to legion camps on the border of the Empire (limes), and even further, to the so-called Barbaricum. Over the border, salt was sold to the Germans and Yazygs. Neighbouring Pannonia clearly lacked of salt, hence the ex-ports by boat from Dacia to areas situated in present-day Austria. In the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Turda mine supplied salt by the same route, no longer to Carnuntum and Aquincum, but to Vienna and Budapest which are situated in the neighbouring of these archaeological sites (Dumitru 2005: 137 sq.).
According to some historians, including A. Ziółkowski, the discovery of salt deposits and their exploitation had a major significance for the beginnings of the Roman state (Ziółkowski 2005: 52‒53). This researcher has shown that the largest salt deposits of the Apennine Peninsula were situated near the mouth of the Tiber, and that they were already exploited in prehistoric times. Along the river, a road
called Via Salaria led to Rome, and further, to the Apennines. When the Romans occupied the salt extraction sites, the mountain peoples, among whom the Sabines, began to depend on them. At that time, salt was extremely important for livestock farming. An adult human being needs about 2 kg of salt a year. Sheep need a similar quantity. Cows and oxen need as much as 30 kg of salt a year (Ziółkowski 2005:52). Under the Monarchy, the Romans controlled the only crossing of the Tiber and could make profits supplying salt to the big herds in the mountains. In this way, salt in the hands of the rulers of Rome changed into gold (Cf. Corelli 1988:107‒127). Duringof the Roman Republic, Rome was the most powerful city of the Mediterranean. Salt extraction or the tribute paid by the merchants for its transportation were one of the most important sources of income of the city. At that time, entire villages bred animals, and no matter whether they did it to get cow milk, sheep wool, goat meat or strong oxen for ploughing, buying salt for the animals was a necessity. Various neighbours of the Empire had the same problem a few centuries later, hence the already mentioned commercial contacts of the inhabitants of Roman Dacia with breeders over the Carpathian mountains.
Salt was also necessary for the preservation of food, especially meat, for cooking and in some crafts. It also was added to oil lamps to prevent them from smoking. In the Imperial era, real fortunes were made on the production of salty fish sauces, especially in the South of the Iberian Peninsula where many of them were produced on a mass scale. The salt used for their production mainly came from seawater evaporation (Saile 2000: 173). These sauces were appreciated for their delicacy, and also as aphrodisiac. They were sold during centuries in enormous areas of the Empire (Berdowski 2002: 151 sq.). They had an extremely powerful smell which would be dif-ficult to accept today, but which ancient gourmets highly appreciated. Some of them, perhaps due to snobbery, perhaps due to the belief about their particular effect on men, reached exorbitant prices that can be compared to the prices of branded cham-pagnes nowadays. Various delicacies, such as olives and mussels, were preserved and transported in brine. As shown above, neither the poor sheep breeder living on poor soup, nor the refined gourmet or the rich Roman businessman could do without salt.
In conclusion, we can notice that in different cultures since the Neolithic to mod-ern times, salt played an important role in the economy as a major current consump-tion product. Without salt, it was impossible to keep livestock and to preserve meat. Salt mining made it possible to earn extremely attractive incomes. Many people made their fortunes or reached a high political position starting with salt extraction. Paradoxically, for thousands of years, the sweetness of power and wealth actually had a taste of salt.
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