1 gen 2000 anni a. C. - La route du sel

Descrizione:

Salt has long been a precious commodity—it’s been used to flavor and
preserve food, and as an antiseptic, for example. But easily harvested
salt was a scarce commodity in antiquity, so areas rich in the mineral
became important trading centers. Routes connecting these centers to
other settlements also became commonplace. Of the many such routes that
sprang up, one of the most famous was the Roman Via Salaria
(Salt Route), which ran from Ostia, near Rome, across Italy to the
Adriatic coast. Salt was so precious, it made up a portion of a Roman
soldier’s pay. It is from this that we get the word salary (from sal,
the Latin word for salt) and the phrase “not worth his salt”—the latter
because a soldier’s salt pay was docked if he did not work hard.
Another important salt route across Europe was the Old Salt Road.
This path ran 62 miles from Lüneburg in northern Germany, which was one
of the most plentiful salt sources in northern Europe, to Lübeck on the
north German coast. During the Middle Ages, this route became vital for
providing salt for the fishing fleets that left Germany for
Scandinavia, as the crews used salt to preserve the precious herring
catch. It would take a cart delivering salt some 20 days to traverse the
Old Salt Road, and many towns along the way grew wealthy by levying
taxes and duties on wagons as they passed through.

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