Important Products of Antiquity (1)

To manufacture something, to offer a product to the world, is the very subject of economics. Economics was always one of the reasons for invasions, wars, robberies and even discoveries in human history.

The ambition to obtain rare and expensive things meant that the economy of antiquity rested on certain products such as copper, salt, silk, cedar trees (sedir ağacı) and saffron.

Copper began to be used more than 7,500 years ago. It was a product used even as a raw material, that is, in its primitive form, as it was extracted from the mine. Copper was the first metal to be melted, some 7,000 years ago, and the first metal to be poured into a mould, 6,000 years ago. It was also the first metal to be mixed with tin (kalay) to obtain bronze.

The word copper comes from the island of 'Kıbrıs', which is 'Cyprus' in Latin. Ancient copper jewellery, such as rings and bracelets, is found in Egypt, Persia and Anatolia.

Copper pipes (borular) were used as an industrial element, and this was copied from the Egyptians. A copper sanitary installation can be seen under the lava of Vesuvius that completely covered the ancient city of Herculaneum.

In Turkey, at Çatalhöyük (Konya), needles, hooks and earrings of pure copper were found. The 3 copper needles of Çatalhöyük are the oldest metal objects in the world.

Making copper dishes is still today an important craft in Turkey. In Istanbul we have a market called 'Bakırcılar Çarşısı', between the Grand Bazaar and the Beyazıt mosque. Today none of those artisans who worked copper with a hammer is left. The sound of the hammer was like music. I am speaking of 30-40 years ago.

Another product that steered the economy was salt. For more than 8,000 years salt has played an important part in human life. Not only for the Jews but in China, India, Egypt, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire people struggled hard to obtain salt. A moderate quantity of salt is necessary for health. To preserve meat and fish when transporting them from one place to another, salt is essential. Eating salted fish was already known more than 4,000 years ago, and at the same time the Phoenicians were already trading in salt. This product paid better than anything.

The Romans had a particular interest in salt. The road 'Via Salaria' was built solely to carry salt from Rome to the Adriatic Sea.

The price of salt was fixed by an official called the 'saltinator'. There came a time when workers, officials and soldiers were paid in 'salt'. That is where the word 'salary' comes from.

In the Sahara desert, a weight of salt was worth the same weight of gold. Until the middle of the 20th century salt was used as money in Abyssinia (Habeşistan), today's Ethiopia.

This money was in the form of salt bars called 'amoleh', weighing about half a kilo. Today, in certain parts of Sudan, salt is still money. Salt was the cause of wars and massacres, such as the French Revolution of 1789: the people reacted to the high tax the King put on salt. Gandhi began to free his country, India, from the English by throwing a handful of salt into the air.