SALT TRAIL TRIPS with    "ISSA'KAR"       

VIA SALARIUM - THE SALT TRAIL ,
[otherwise known as the 'the Silk road'
or DERECH HAMELACH
[literally the "salt road" - but now mis-translated as the Royal/King's road' ]

along the SALT trail of Eastern Asia Minor:

SARDES [SARDIS] EPHESUS PERGAMUM  HALICARNASSUS [Bodrum] HIERAPOLIS MILETUS APHRODISIAS 		Spain

MADRID SEGOVIA TOLEDO CORDOBA   SEVILLE GRANADA GIRONA BARCELONA
GAZA Jordan

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A Camel train would typically consist of a 'thousand camels' each carrying up to 250 kg - salt...

With the rise of the Mediterranean sealevel, by approximately 1.8 meters above today's level, to its peak at about 400-500 AD,  salt making on any flat sea coastal area   become almost impossible. The salt beds of Ostia, and Ravenna had already been flooded well before this period, and Rome had already sent her emissaries far afield in order to look for inland salt resources.   The obvious and well known outcrops of rock salt had all been taken over and the caravan supply routes  to  the remote mines at TATTA lake-TUZ GOLU - the DEAD SEA and CARDONA, amongst others, were well organised and highly monopolised.   

 VIA SALARIUM - MAP [western Anatolia] 

 

 

Should one compare the Roman Limes in Turkey with that of the Limes in Palestine, it might be noticed that the two have one outstanding similarity. Both, appear to have encompassed the extremely important salt sources, the TUZ GOLU [Tatta] in Turkey, and the DEAD SEA in Palestine.  
In both cases, historians and archaeologists have found it difficult to explain the clearly important trade and caravan routes that passed by these sites, and have completely ignored any references to these salt sources. 
In both cases, the Romans in particular, engaged in constructing harbours and facilities to transport a variety of goods.Today some, though not the famous 'gaum' salted fish paste,  may seem to us to have been no more than luxury goods, But,  almost never  mentioned,  was the strategic and critical commodity, salt, which might have explained their considerable effort and resulting prosperity, and which would have justified any investment, or even their presence away from Rome.

  

The DEAD SEA salt lake 
The "TUZ GOLU" Tatta, Salt lake 
Three great 'provinces' bordered on the lake, 

 
LYCAONIA, CAPPADOCIA, and GALATIA, each 
controlling the caravan traffic, though in Roman times 
Galatia was to control the lake itself, and initial taxes.

The 'TUZ GOLU' or Tatta, salt lake situated in the center of Asia Minor, is a highly saline lake which seasonally dissolves and then precipitates salt [NaCl] as a cake, allowing it to be collected in solid form. 
After the rains it may be more than three times greater than the area of the Dead Sea. 
Conspicuously IN TERMS OF THE SALT TRADE, the caravan trails of western Asia Minor converged at this desolate point, where thousands of camels loaded their salt bulk, and probably exchanged relatively innocuous 'trinkets' and silks with the eastern trail caravaners coming from beyond the Taurus mountains busy doing the exactly the same thing. 

 TUZ GOLU IS A salt lake very similar in characteristics to the Dead Sea salt lake. It is situated some 70 miles due south of Ankara,  It is a catchment basin for run off water and as a result during the summer months it becomes  dry desolate and parched with salt deposited from precipitation. Unlike the Dead Sea it is shallow and during these few months salt cake may be  collected as solid briquettes  

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