Why Did People Pay More for the Salt than Gold?

In 1352, Ibn Battuta reached Taghaza, a Saharan settlement where houses and even the mosque were built from blocks of salt. Then he recorded something much stranger. At Walata, a load of salt sold for eight to ten gold mithqals. Farther south in the city of Mali, a comparable load could sell for twenty, thirty, sometimes forty. Same mineral. Same kind of load. Up to four times the price. So what changed? In this Ancient Instinct investigation, we follow the same salt from the mines of Taghaza, onto camel caravans, through West African markets, and into the wider trade network connected to the Mali Empire. Along the way, we uncover why salt mattered, why geography changed its value, how pieces of salt could be used in exchange, why Mali did not need to directly own Taghaza to benefit from the trade, and the human labor behind the system. The salt itself never changed. The world around it did. Sources include: Ibn Battuta, Rihla / Travels Al Umari’s account of Mansa Musa The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Empires of the Western Sudan and The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Timbuktu H. Collet, 2024 — research on the Massufa and trans-Saharan political power #MaliEmpire #AfricanHistory #AncientInstinct