Salt Notes : The Industrial Revolution
may have started much earlier than the conventional accounts. There is
an archeological site in eastern France, in the process of being dug, dating
back to the Iron Age (7th century BC). The amount of debris is five million
cubic meters, twice the volume of the great pyramid of Kheops. It consists
predominantly of chunks of ceramics, the remnants of a proto-industry that
endured until the Roman occupation of Gaul. Salt was made by boiling brine,
from local salted springs. The volume of production was of the order of 10,000
tons yearly. The tombs of the Princes of Salt have been localized. They have
yet to be explored. The prospects are tantalizing, all the evidence points to
these chieftains, Celts in all likelihood, having been made fabulously rich by
their trade in salt and in salted goods.