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Forum: General Forum
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , Klingon , sem , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , coldrum , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith
Respond to: Ancient Salt Wells\\Have they been conveniently forgotten about\\Place names relating to salt -
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Jez
Joined:
21-10-2001
Messages: 87
from Britain
 OFF-Line
|  New Message Posted!2004-06-16 07:20
Quote:
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On 2004-06-16 02:42, GAZ wrote:
The importance of salt...
[ This message was edited by: GAZ on 2004-06-16 02:54 ]
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Hi there, Gaz
I've moved your post here, as I think it will get more notice than it would in the Sacred Sites? Forum.
Hope you get some good replies 
Jez - moderator
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GAZ
Joined:
27-09-2002
Messages: 11
from North-East
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2004-06-16 02:42
The importance of salt... a salary worth it's weight in the bad old-fashioned days and many an era before, but not much of a commodity these days - for obvious reasons of course. And being a curious investigator into our historical past, I found the subject of salt can easily lead into many different avenues of interest. Just type in salt, salt making, salt wells, etc and surf the net, see what you come up with. Don’t get too side tracked as I did, you might start to believe in conspiracies of some sort.
Anyroad, my interest in Salt Wells started while out fishing one day on a stretch of local coastline – lets just say somewhere in the North-East. I stumbled across a fairly large hole not far from the edge of the cliff and as I peered down into it, I realised the sea was crashing through directly underneath.
There was one small wooden post three inches in width and standing proud six inches above the ground which lay about five feet away from the hole. Curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it I was inspecting what looked like a very old stump of a wood. It had large burnt chamfers at the end and appeared to be coated in tar or bitumen. I had my digi camera on me and took some photo’s before replacing it securely back into the ground.
Not that far away from the hole I noticed what appeared to be piles of broken pottery (shards) and amongst that there was a fair amount of burnt coal or wood. Without going into detail of how the salt makers may have siphoned off fresh water from the near by springs to bring the saline water up above sea level then how it was heated in the pots, which were then smashed to the collect the crystallized salt etc – the British climate might not have supported the solar pan method. Or have I got this all wrong?.
I got in touch with a local archaeologist working in the area at the time - thinking I would create a small amount of interest for the local area – He told me it was an upside down cave and when I mentioned the wooden post I was totally ignored. Strange…I apologized for wasting his time and left it at that.
Some expert out there might put me straight on the matter. All in all I’ve learned a hell of a lot about salt... Gaz
[ This message was edited by: GAZ on 2004-06-16 02:54 ]
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