The Salt Roads

Silk got the fame. Salt built the first roads - and the caravans that carried it changed the world. Long before the famous Silk Road had a name, merchants were hauling salt slabs across the Sahara, frankincense up from Arabia, amber down from the Baltic, and pepper across the Indian Ocean. Those cargoes raised cities out of desert and lagoon - Petra, Palmyra, Timbuktu, Venice, Samarkand - funded empires, carried alphabets, numerals, paper and three world faiths, and then thinned only slowly, over centuries, as more of the trade gradually moved to the sea. The Salt Roads tells that whole story the way the caravans lived it: one route, one commodity, one city at a time, across Africa, Europe and Asia - with famous travellers' tales named as the reports they are, and the real logistics of wells, tolls, seasons and camel-loads kept in view. Inside you'll discover: Why salt came before money - and how Rome's Via Salaria, the Hallstatt mines and Venice's monopoly were all built on it. Taghaza, the town built of salt, and the azalai caravans that traded its slabs south to Timbuktu's gold markets. The Incense Road from the groves of Dhofar to Petra, and the South Arabian kingdoms that taxed every load. Silk's eastern road - Chang'an, Dunhuang, Samarkand, Antioch - and how the secret of silk itself was stolen. Amber, glass, Tyrian purple, grain, wine, lapis and tin: the cargoes that made the Mediterranean and Bronze Age worlds. How faiths, scripts, paper and numerals travelled by caravan - and how plague travelled with them. What happened when da Gama's ships took the trade: the great, gradual diversion that thinned the caravan cities over centuries - and left some roads still running. Who this book is for: For the history reader who wants the whole ancient map, not just the Silk Road; for travellers and armchair archaeologists who love a city with a cargo behind it; and for anyone who has wondered how the world first became one connected place. Miriam Hartwell writes popular history of trade, travel and the everyday economics of the ancient world. Forty chapters. Three continents. One connected ancient world - follow the salt.