Talk:History of salt

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[edit] Added a salt production photo

Added a photo of a Chinese salt brine well. China has had a long history with salt. It's trade, wealth, mining, technology. In mining of salt using percussion drilling technology actually led to the technology that is used in the first oil wells and oil exploration. There is the Zigong Salt Museum dedicated to the subject of salt. Phreakster 1998 01:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

...and yes I would also challenge this page on the history of salt in that I think all of documents I've read point to China to be the first to use salt and develop it - not the west. Phreakster 1998 01:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Come on, anybody claiming to be the first to develop salt must be joking. M. R. Bloch from the Negev Institute for Arid Zone Research has written extensively on salt (I will use it to work on this article). Even the Aborigines and the people of Papua had technologies to concentrate and transport salt. It is highly unlikely they were in any way influenced by Chinese or other inventions. Wandalstouring 10:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right. Perhaps your not. Currently, no one really knows for sure who used salt, who mined salt, or who was the earliest in developing a salt trade and industry. On who used salt there is no definitive way to prove it either way. Most other sources show that China had been working salt somewhere in 6,000 B.C. Given the rich history in China - this article is most definitely skewed to favor European developments and makes very little mention of China. Which was my point. Phreakster 1998 21:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't help with any "invention" claim (plain nonsense to say about something that far back, many areas possibly used for winning salt back than are under water now). Say what is evident and when. It doesn't help CSB if someone pushes Chinese history without sources. Wandalstouring 22:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Many sources to say the least. Look at the bottom of the Zigong page and you will find my resources - Columbia University, Scientific American, etc. In fact - look to your own sources. M.R. Bloch himself has an entire page dedicated to it at http://salt.org.il/frame_china1.html.
I never said anything about inventing salt. How can one invent a rock? However, people can harness technology to exploit a resource, create an industry and trade. My point is - that many people have already noted this - M.R. Bloch's page draws upon many of my sources for his diagrams. But again - I'm not pushing Chinese History - I just dispute the lack of citation in this compilation. Which of course seems very eurocentric. Phreakster 1998 23:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Further - the invention claim would be the drilling technology. If you do more research you'll find it's true. Phreakster 1998 23:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
As seen in a qoute from your own sources: "The salt monoply in China was an integral and intimate part of the organized state from early times. The industry successfully applied advanced technology to exploit deep drilling, lifting and piped transport from their brine well long before the Western world." Phreakster 1998 00:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
As to my point - it is akin to talking about the history of flying without talking about the Wright Brothers. Phreakster 1998 00:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Now I'm a bit confused whether I really did see a claim of China "inventing" salt (hallucinations???). Surely this article is totally lacking information on several regions. Wandalstouring 10:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I think your confusion is over the way "develop it" can be read. Ambiguous to say they least and probably my fault for not expounding upon it more. "Develop it" is better explained as "exploit it" (but exploitation is too strong of a word in my opinion) or "develop an industry around it" - is probably more explanitory. Yes - it's vague in a lot of areas I've been meaning to expand this article is many areas - but been too busy to write a long and well referenced historical account. Perhaps you would have some areas that you think need to be written on? China - I guess is one. Anywhere else?
Africa could probably make a good documentation for what the lack of salt means. There is a German work from 1918 on the effects of the lack of salt in precolonial Africa (salt addiction, health effects from the lack of salt, people dying from the lack of salt, trade&slavery for salt). It would make a good intro to understand the importance of this substance. Next could be Australia (transport of seawater), Papua (highland tribes killing for salt) and Brasilia (using ash as a substitute). Afterwards I would switch to the development of seabased salt exploitation(give just an example, I suggest Phoenecia which is documented in the bible). China would play a very important role for introducing the modern ways of obtaining salt when due to climatic changes the sea salt became extremely limited and traditional salt mines were not efficient enough. The idea to cover all areas is perhaps to much but providing a good mix and an overview is perhaps the better approach. Wandalstouring 23:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good place to start. I'll gather what information I have and start to write something coherent or if would you want to take a stab at it I'd have no objections? Phreakster 1998 00:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable claims

A lot of this looks like a load of crap. I don't remember from history class the Confederacy's downfall being a result of a lack of salt, or of Ghandi using salt as a political catalyst... 5/9/06 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.125.11.247 (talk • contribs) 13:51, 9 May 2006

Maybe if you did more research on the topic, you would find out that it is true. In today's society, we often take salt for granted because it can be bought so conveniently. You should read Mark Kurlansky's excellent book, Salt: A World History for more information on these topics. BettyAnn 04:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The blurb about the effect of the raid on Saltville, VA is wholly unsupported by the facts. True, Federal forces did raid Saltville with the intention of destroying the salt works. However, the Confederates successfully defended the town and the works: the salt supply was never harmed. Wikipedia's own article on the Battle of Saltville confirms as much. If this article's goal is to maintain factual accuracy, then the article should fall in line with corresponding articles and established history. It is for these reasons I have removed the bit about salt's involvement in the outcome of the American Civil War until we can find proven examples. In the meantime, Saltville, VA is out of the question. Auror 02:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Rather after the fact but here it is: I've read Kurlansky and two main things come across: Having an articel on the "History of salt" when his is about the only recent major invenstigation into it is ASKING for this articel to become nothing more then a summarization for that book (It sounds like it is about 98% right now). Likewise, if there is no other source to back alot of this up, it's going to read like a salt(ed)-PoV piece on how salt was responsible for everything ever. 68.39.174.238 02:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
There is a reference at http://www.saltinstitute.org/38.html - but I am unqualified to judge. Wizzy…☎ 12:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

some of this stuff is uncited and sounds a little suspicious. like the part about the seven year's war being started by the fench and enclish looking for salt supplies....or the part about lewis and clark looking for salt supplies.... are there any sources to back this up? Justforasecond 03:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Neither the Seven Years' War or Lewis and Clark articles make any mention of this. Dyfsunctional 18:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to remove the bit about the Seven Years' War (salt may have affected the Newfoundland fishery, but you could hardly call it the "cause" of the war) and tone down the bit about Saltville a bit. It certainly hurt Confederate logistics, but it wasn't precisely a death blow. Choess 16:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The story about Mahatma Gandhi and salt is correct. See Salt March or Mahatma Gandhi. Salt was valuable in Timbuktu, but I have not seen another source suggesting that it was as valuable as gold. But the Salt Institute's article on the history of salt at http://www.saltinstitute.org/38.html seems to confirm most of the other points in this article. TruthbringerToronto 03:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roles of Other Countries

6000 B.C. is the educated guess of Chinese historians on the first gathering of salt from a dry salt lake. Kurlansky's book states that the earliest graves in Egypt start from 3000 B.C. - about the first record salt making in China. I think Kurlansky's book pretty much repeated states that China used salt first. Which by reading these wikipedia articles - is not mentioned at all. Curious - isn't it? Kinda of revisionist history in my opinion - similar to the debate over the noodle. Italy or China. Which was recently settled - it's China. If no one objects in the next few days - I'm going to revise to reflect this - citing Kurlansky's work "Salt - A world History" page 18 and 36 as the source.

Since a lot of people here seem to have read Kurlansky's book (Which I recently did as well), I wanted to touch on the subject of China. It's pretty obvious that he glorifies China in his writing, but I'd like to find out how much of what he wrote is true. The history division of the "Salt" page noted that Roman/Greek/Egyptian civilization first registered salt use. Since Rome wasn't even around in 4000 B.C., this doesn't exactly make sense. Greece was settled "before 1500 B.C." and Egypt around 3000 B.C., according to some other Wikipedia articles. Since Kurlansky postulates that China started procuring salt since 6000 B.C., Rome/Greece/Egypt probably couldn't have been the first to gather salt. That said, which country, according to historical documentation, was first?

Sorry if this seems like rambling, but there doesn't seem to be too much information on salt at the moment.

Australia. ;) As per above there are sources pointing out that salt was also used in concentrated solutions. So perhaps we should clarify that salt was not "invented", but rather the oldest evidence of the use of solid concentrated salt (ash was also used as it contains NaCl) dates back to this or this region. "Invented" claims have nothing to do with serious writting about a topic. It is only by chance that we find some leftovers and try to solve the puzzle of what happened in former times. Wandalstouring 10:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The bit about Mali and "its weight in gold"

Referring to the user above who has this thing with Kurlanksky's book (Which is good, IMAO), I believe he discussed this and explicitly stated that it was likely caused by confusion over the method used to exchange the two goods, and the fact that it was basically an urban legend (At the time). 68.39.174.238 03:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


Yes, I just read Kurlanksky's book and he specifically said that salt WAS NOT traded 1:1 with gold by weight. Laneb2005 19:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I read an article pointing out the importance of salt in slave trade. Springer A.,1918. Die Salzversorgung der Eingeborenen Afrikas vor der neuzeitlichen europäischen Kolonisation, E. Gaeblers Geograph Institut (Leipzig, also dissertation in Leipzig) is a scientific paper which researches the salt supply in Africa in precolonial times. perhaps this can be used to roughly value salt. Wandalstouring 10:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Soldier comes from the word salt

I heard that the word soldier comes from the word salt, anyone know if this is true? "soldat" is the french, and it sounds even more like salt. anyone know the latin?

The word "Soldier" comes ultimately from the word solidus which was a roman gold coin. Massimamanno 18:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The word "salary" shares a root with salt. "Salary derives from the Middle English salaire, from the Latin word salarium, a payment made in salt (sal) or for salt, from salarius meaning pertaining to salt."(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary)--76.160.30.28 19:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Erica

[edit] English Wich towns

Although there is some evidence that towns which have a relationship to salt have an ending "wich", the converse is not necessarily true. I'm dubious about the inclusion of Horwich, Prestwich, Parwich , Milwich, Colwich, Hammerwich, Bloxwich, Castle Bromwich, West Bromwich, Dunwich, Harwich, Ipswich, Norwich, Dulwich, Greenwich, Woolwich, Sandwich and Sheldwich. Is there any evidence for their relationship to salt production? As the Wich town article says there are alternate schools of thought that wich means dwelling or fortified place. Salinae 20:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, interesting point. Myself, I only know about the four "domesday wiches", and that only from briefly reading around the web yesterday; the rest of the list I brought over verbatim from the Nantwich article, where it seemed slightly off topic. As it says, wich comes from the Latin word vicus which merely means "place". Anybody who knows stuff want to edit this?Gzuckier 14:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, isn't there some German town name ending which similarly means salt production? Vague recollection from Alton Brown on a Good Eats show a while back.Gzuckier 14:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Unless anyone objects I'll remove the extra ones (i.e. other than the four Cheshire wich'es and Droitwich) Salinae 22:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
No objection here.Gzuckier 14:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Section titles "Closed pan production under Fucking" and "Salty Dick". Someone fix this, I'm not a wikipedian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.170.234 (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)