ARE YOU WORTH YOUR DAILY SALT?
Ric Polansky ©
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you the most unsung, unheralded word of unknown importance……salt. You can say a man may be worth his weight in gold, or that others can be sold for thirty pieces of silver, but without your daily salt you would never make it through the day.
2A. There is nothing more common in this world than people, and the more common they become they become the salt of the earth.
You have probably never given it very much thought, but as you know, too much salt will kill you, and worse yet, too little salt will likewise murder you. So much of history has been written concerning Empires and how they conquered others, robbing from them their ivory, gold and silver, but long before Empires there was civilisations and they were in fact the first city states of civilisation and they were in fact controlled totally by one commodity …. salt. Going back for a moment you will discover that archaeologists find it a lot easier to trace modern man through pots and shards and flints and metals that might have survived, but of course salt is easily dissolved by water and difficult to trace. But history has its past and most recently the search for the new world began with one idea in mind …….. the search for the Spice Trade.
It is interesting to note that all great civilisations; i.e. Mediterranean, Mezzo America or Babylon were on the edges of Arab zones and hence close known salt sources. Salt, not being as common as water, was of course in limited quantity and therefore had its own inherent critical demographic power for first communities. In even simpler terms man couldn’t become civilised without it and becoming civilised meant that he had to have a community and consequently the storage and distribution of such a vital commodity as salt became totally important. Whoever controlled salt, in short, held power and most certainly no trip leaving their community could be done without salted meat or salted fish.
Arthur David Blochand has created an interesting bibliography on the subject, explaining in very simple terms that salt, from its very first meetings, helped lead to such important studies as Physiology, Geology, Archaeology, Paleoclimatology, Religion, and Economics. And of course salt played a vial importance in the Religions of the area, whether it be in the Jewish/Kosher use of killing the animals and hence “Temple Economics or Egyptian embalming”.
As the saying goes: All (Via Salarium) lead …. to Rome! Do not let the importance of that statement be overruled. Rome itself established its power along major salt routes to salt sites wherever they furthered their Kingdom’s expansion. Rome in fact owed its Maritime Colonies and sea power for defending the important salt ports of Antium, Anxur, Minturnae, Sinuessa, and Pyrgi.
Pliny, following Aristotle's ideas, interprets the use of salt as a means of payment ..."in Rome...the soldier's pay was originally salt and the word salary derives from it..." Plinius Naturalis Historia”.
From the basic route word of “salt” (Sodium Chloride)
SLAVES WERE BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR SALT
"SALVATUS" [latin] =slave eg: "BOUGHT in exchange for salt"
sal....=[latin] salt
Salus, being the Roman goddess of health
YOUR SALARY IS YOUR "worth in Salt"
"salary" Cross references:--sal.a.ry \'sal-(*-)re-\ n
ME salarie, fr. L
salarium L. - salt money, pension, salary,
more at SALT : fixed compensation paid regularly for services
In the jungle where salt is scarce I have met explorers who have traded bars of salt for actual pieces of gold.
Modern man needs a minimum of 5 – 10 grams per day.
Salt, being an electrolyte, cannot be stored or manufactured in the body, it is a quantity of essentiality, oftentimes depending upon life and death. A complex hormone mechanism ensures that the portion and concentration of salt in the blood remain constant. If a man eats too much salt he excretes what is not needed. If he takes in too little the mechanism makes the body excrete more water in the form of sweat in order to keep the solidity constant.
I hope you have taken this small note with a pinch of salt, at the same time, if you have taken two pinches, put them on a wetted hand and knock back a quick swig of tequila.
Masada , the Jewish fortress stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea and which controlled the salt supply route from Mt Sodom to Jerusalem and the North west, was critical to Roman strategy
Salt was So important to the Romans, that the 'limes' in Palestine during the period of Herod, surrounded the Dead Sea, and was to control the salt trade mainly from Mt. Sodom a salt mountain.
Ancient civilisations' languages, and possibly the populations' resulting behaviour, drastically influenced references and lexicon, concerning the supply, trading, consumption, and possession of salt. Whether it was subjection or subservience, regulation of behaviour and language was dictated, by the way salt was supplied and traded. Peace [salaam] literally meant negotiating [salute'] for salt, and war ['"milah"'ama] was literally about salt. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, salt was so important to the development of our civilisations, that any inconsistency of supplies, or control of sources of salt, could be detrimental to the community independence and liberty.
SALT (NaCl) - SALVATUS - SALVATION - COVENANT of most religions
YOUR SALARY IS YOUR "worth in Salt"
SALARY / Webster Definition for:-- "salary"Cross references:--sal.a.ry \'sal-(*-)re-\ n [ME salarie, fr. L
SALARIUM - salt money, pension, salary, fr. neut.]ofsalarius of salt, fr. sal salt - more at SALT : fixed compensation paid regularly for services :
``The Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom ... to David ... by a covenant of salt.''- 2 Chronicles
A covenant of salt - A covenant which could not be broken.
Salt was a symbol of incorruption.
