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Why was salt so expensive in ancient times?

The relationship between man and salt dates back to ancient times. Sodium chloride is an essential human element that must be consumed every day. Since ancient times, people have added salt to their food. But this was not at all the seasoning that modern man was accustomed to: plants soaked in sea water were burned, leaving behind brackish ash, which was sprinkled on food.

Salt was actively used in agriculture, in animal husbandry and, of course, salt served as an excellent antiseptic, protecting food from rotting. In other words, salt was a valuable and irreplaceable resource. For thousands of years, it cost fabulous money, and only wealthy people could afford to have a salt shaker filled with salt on the table. Which is quite strange, given the fact that salt is ubiquitous on the planet, and there are many ways to extract it.

What are the salt extraction methods? One should not think that our ancestors knew nothing about the methods of salt extraction. For example, on the Black Sea coast, archaeologists have found an ancient center for the production of salt by evaporating sea water. According to rough estimates, by the end of the 5th millennium BC, about 5 tons of salt were produced here annually.

Why was salt so expensive in ancient times? The entire history of salt until modern times is characterized by the fact that its extraction never kept pace with its consumption, making it a scarce product. This was largely due to the imperfection of salt extraction technologies, as well as poorly developed logistics. For example, in order to organize the evaporation of salt, it was required to have a huge army of workers who would maintain constant fire, add water, take out the finished product and deliver it to the warehouse. At the same time, salt-mining centers and caravans leaving from there attracted bandit gangs like magnets - so additional security was indispensable. All this required enormous financial costs, due to which the price of freshly made salt was already high from the beginning.

Salt mining was the task of national importance for centuries; therefore, permits for its production were issued only to a limited number of companies that acted as monopolists on the salt market, setting inflated prices for the product.

In addition, the state itself played a role in increasing the price of the salt by introducing the so-called "salt tax" - a certain percentage that the mining company was obliged to give to the state from each pound of salt sold. Due to the small number of salt-producing centers, it was convenient, simple and profitable for the state to levy such a tax, so most countries were in no hurry to abolish it until the end of the 19th century.

But, finally, the abolition of the salt tax, coupled with technological progress in the field of energy resources, has collapsed the price of salt, which has become available to the absolute majority of the population, having ceased to be considered a scarce commodity.

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