The Production of Salt in the Hittite Period and its Trading in Central and North-eastern Anatolia

This study deals with salt production in Hittite Anatolia from the 15th to the 13th century BC and investigates, mainly through the epigraphic sources available to us, the major extraction, production and trade sites of salt during the Late Bronze age in central and northern Anatolia. In ancient societies of Western Asia salt was a fundamental element for cooking and conserving food but it was also essential as magical ingredient in the treatment of several diseases, and in the leather industry to transform animal skins into finished products. However a study on its importance during the Hittite period is still absent both from archaeological and historical-philological perspective. According to written sources, Hittites referred to salt using the Sumerian MUN to indicate every kind of salt. Beside the Akkadian term ṭabtum, there is also a proposal for a Hittite reading as išuwant-, mentioned in §170 of the Hittite Laws. The present paper analyzes Hittite cuneiform texts in order to reconstruct various aspects of the Anatolian industry of salt and its geographical context with a focus on central and north-eastern Anatolia.