Salt Trade

[Boreades]

Have we mentioned the in Austria? Worked since the bronze age. From whence the with trade links to Britain, Ireland and Greece via . Marseille also matters to us because it was part of the Cornish/Devon tin trade route, by sea to Brittany & Bordeaux, then through the Garonne valley to the Med (to short-cut a long sea journey through the Bay of Biscay)

[Rocky]

You're right to point out the Hallstatt mines are central, geographically and commercially. The Hallstatt Celtic Culture seems quite late though it may be the 'Celtic' name is misleading. In all probability salt was traded northwards to the Baltic and fancy goods would get exchanged -- either for the salt or, perhaps more likely, as presents to the upper crust in exchange for the local salt monopoly.

The overall problem for the whole of the Baltic region is that the weather is too cold to evaporate sea salt naturally and the Baltic is too unsalty (two parts per thousand as against the normal thirty-five parts) for industrial saltmaking. So rock salt (from Hallstatt and places south) gets brought up the Elbe, the Oder, the Neisse etc. [Hence "Saxony", ie the land of the salt-people, is divided into Upper and Lower.]

[Donna]

There are some who claim the Celts are Germanic. Perhaps because of the connections between salt, Saxon, sell and kell since sell-sel-sal are etymologically linked.

[hvered]

[Donna]

[Donna]

[Boreades]

Re "The Veneti ships bear a striking resemblance to the Viking trading vessels known as knarr which researchers persist in calling 'Gallo-Roman' ships notwithstanding. "

As with many things, some "researchers" get it back to front (or seriously sideways). The Roman invaders captured over 200 Veneti ships in the in 56 BCE, between the Romans led by Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. This naval battle was later immortalised in Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars (Volume Three)

'The Gauls' [Veneti] ships were made with much flatter bottoms [than Roman ships] to help them ride shallow water caused by shoals or ebb tides. Exceptionally high bows and sterns fitted them for use in heavy seas and violent gales, and the hulls were made entirely of oak, to enable them to stand any amount of shock and rough usage. The cross-timbers, which consisted of beams a foot wide, were fastened with iron bolts as thick as a man's thumb. The anchors were secured with chains instead of ropes. They used sails of raw hides or thin leather, either because they had no flax and were ignorant of its use, or more probably because they thought that ordinary sails would not stand the violent storms and squalls of the Atlantic and were not suitable for such heavy vessels … adapted for sailing such treacherous and stormy waters. We could not injure them by ramming because they were so solidly built, and their height made it difficult to reach them with missiles or board them with grappling irons. Moreover, when it began to blow hard and they were running before the wind, they weathered the storm more easily; they could bring in to shallow water with greater safety, and when left aground by the tide had nothing to fear from reefs or pointed rocks.'

The Romans recognised superior Celtic technology when they found it, and would have put some or many of the captured Veneti trading ships into use as part of their fleet. These were big craft with covered decks, with a capacity of c.200 cubic metres.

The Viking Knarr vessels were much smaller, open desk, clinker built and often propelled by oars as well as sail, to suit their role as river or coastal boats.

[Penny]

[Donna]

[Boreades]