EXPLORE A SALT MINE
Across history, people have gone to great lengths to obtain what is a common commodity today
WORDS AILSA HARVEY
© Getty / Alamy / Wiki: Gordon Leggett
DID YOU KNOW? Salt was given as a religious offering in ancient Egypt to preserve mummies
Humans have collected salt from their surroundings for thousands of years. The oldest method is solar evaporation, which has been practised in warm climates for as long as the Sun has dried up shallow pools of seawater, leaving salt crystals behind. But some of the greatest and most elaborate salt production projects in history involve underground excavation. Rock salt mining is the digging of a maze of tunnels beneath the ground towards large beds of salt that have been buried for millions of years.
Did you know?
The word ‘salary’ also comes from the Latin word for salt
Rock salt, also called halite, isn’t usually edible. Today, salt from these mines is mostly used for gritting, weed killing, cleaning and water softening. But how does salt form in the rock?