Archaeologica.org

More than you ever wanted to know about the Via Salaria, kb.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Salaria

Thanks for the link to the map, min.

The road furthest east ran to copper mines.

If only we had a nice cuneiform archive from the region. Or even some more Egyptian hieroglyphic records from the same.

Where textual evidence fails we have to rely on archaeology.

http://sidneyrigdon.com/DRB/BEGIN/mines.htm

This is from memory since I haven't found the book yet.
There are time frames and sea levels and population growth factors involved.
The local marshes developed problems and couldn't meet the demand.
There was a Bay of Biscay salt industry as well as Austrian mountain salt mines that the Romans needed.
But the Dead Sea is pretty isolated from sea level changes.

Something that EP said clicked so I've been checking out the availability of tin in the ME.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Science/tin.htm


Apparently, tin mines existed in Syria, Turkey and Iran and had to be imported by the Egyptians. That does sort of explain the attractiveness of sailing to Iberia or Cornwall for tin. Not only did it break up the monopoly but shipment by sea would be preferable to transporting ore or even refined tin by land. One has to wonder how that would have worked in Syria? Camels were not domesticated until the first millenium. Horses would have been too expensive and ox carts would have needed something resembling roads and bridges...or at least fords.