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A very common and simple chemical compound.
One of the cheapest products and yet the most permanent in human diet. In the
Mediterranean region, salt appears as a natural oddity with easily accessible
traces on seaside rocks, puddles and lagoons. There where times in the past
when salt played an crucial part in mans economic history. It was called the
white gold and its importance was similar was similar to petroleum today.
There is a significant story of how a
common rock, one of the earliest pure substances, has shaped civilization. An
ancient civilization vocabulary and possibly a populations resulting behaviour,
was drastically influenced by the references to the precarious supply, trading,
consumption and possession of salt. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, salt
was important to the development of our civilizations. Any inconsistency of
supplies, or control of the sources of salt, could be detrimental to the
community independence, expansion and liberty.
Except salt’s natural properties it plays
an important role in the religious ceremonies and covenants. Plato described it
as especially dear to gods. Homer lliad called it divine substance and in
Odyssey he quoted “Those who do not know the sea… do not eat their food mixed
with salt”.
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