If salt was scarce and expensive, how did people "salt the earth" to ensure their enemies would stay defeated?
score:7
According to the very wikipedia article cited in the original question:
The story of the salting of Carthage was probably invented in the 19th century.
(In the section quoted in the question:) The concept of salting destroyed cities originated in the ancient middle east and was revived in late medieval Europe. Specifically the Hittites and Assyrians used to ceremonially spread minerals and weeds across destroyed cities. Take an example, Ashurbanipal quoted by wikipedia
(...) I devastated the provinces of Elam. Salt and sihlu I scattered over them (...) The dust of Susa, Madaktu, Haltemash and the rest of the cities I gathered together and took to Assyria (...) The noise of people, the tread of cattle and sheep, the glad shouts of rejoicing, I banished from its fields. Wild asses, gazelles and all kinds of beasts of the plain I caused to lie down among them, as if at home.
Sihlu is some plant (of the thorny kind), Susa, Madaktu, Haltemash are elamite cities. So he says, he salted not just the cities but the entire country. What he actually wants to convey is that it is now pretty desolate; no happy farmers, no domestic animals, but weeds and wild beasts.
I am, therefore, not convinced that it is meant literally, both in the sense that perhaps they actually scattered nothing at all (except for what accidentally fell over while they were looting) and in the sense that if they did, it was probably not valuable table salt but anything toxic they could find. (And, as has been pointed out, it would clearly have been ceremonially.)
Note that much of the farm land of the middle east had to be irrigated artificially and was prone to salinization. So "scattering salt" may also actually refer to driving away the farmers that would tend to the land.
With regard to the revival of the custom in medieval Europe (wikipedia cites Pope Boniface VIII), I would assume they just had red it in the bible (Judges 9.45) and thought it particularly godly to revive the old customs. It would still have been ceremonially. Though historical evidence suggests that they, perhaps different from Ashurbanipal, actually performed the ceremony. That having become a common cultural institution, it may in the 19th century have been projected back into Roman Antiquity.
More post
- 📝 How was Galileo's approach to mathematics different than Descartes's approach?
- 📝 Is history always written by the victors?
- 📝 Has women's suffrage ever decided an election?
- 📝 What's the most elaborate ancient mechanism?
- 📝 Has anyone (other than Churchill) indicated that the Germans might have won a negotiated peace in World War II?
- 📝 Why are only the Normandy landings referred to as D-Day?
- 📝 Since the inception of the United States, has the term "America" ever referred to something more than simply "the United States"?
- 📝 How was planning done before computers?
- 📝 Voting enfranchis*m*nt in the USA in the 18th century
- 📝 What was the range of round shot on level ground?
- 📝 What is "quarter column"?
- 📝 During World War II, were there any parts of the Japanese overseas empire that was capable of local re-supply?
- 📝 Why did Spartacus turn South at Mutina instead of continuing North towards Thrace?
- 📝 What was the Victorian opinion of the American Revolution?
- 📝 Were the Huns and Mongols at one point rivals?
- 📝 Why was the North willing to go to war over Slavery?
- 📝 What is this symbol in red box?
- 📝 What is the true reason for the destruction of the Indus Civilisation?
- 📝 Buying/Renting/Leasing houses during history?
- 📝 Which WW2 belligerents provided military brothels?
- 📝 Why did German troops perform this parade near Szászház, in September 1916?
- 📝 Why did emperors of India and China have so many mistresses?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 When has the Tory party split over trade issues?
- 📝 What flags are on display in “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States”?
- 📝 Before modern banking, how did government-issued coins get into everyone's hands?
- 📝 Is the first visually recorded use of anti-cavalry defences on the Bayeux Tapestry?
- 📝 Where did Friedrich Schumann work?
- 📝 What toilet facilities were available to commoners in the middle ages?
- 📝 What led to the abandonment of the word "canton" for RSFSR subdivisions?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 If salt was scarce and expensive, how did people "salt the earth" to ensure their enemies would stay defeated?
- 📝 How did people say “I have to go to the bathroom” before the bathroom and pipes were common?
- 📝 What did European people of the 5th century AD eat during spring and what was the availability?
- 📝 Did more Jews live in Poland than any other country, prior to the Holocaust, because of how Polish laws and people regarded Jews?
- 📝 How difficult was Muraviev's amassing of troops for the forcing of the Treaty of Aigun, and what effects on development did it have?
- 📝 How did people 'park' their horse and buggy in early 20th century cities? How was theft prevented?
- 📝 Did Viet Nam suffer a famine any time during the 1980s? And if not, how close was it to famine?
- 📝 How did Jews feels in the Confederate States of America and what was their political position?
- 📝 How was Pre-Samurai Japan structured ? What part did solders and warriors play in the yayoi culture and how did the Yamato state wage war ?
- 📝 Did people from the cities of Uruk, Ur and Sumer have knowledge/recollection of how old their cities were (say, recollection after 2000 BCE)?
- 📝 How and when did the word "nuclear" replace the word "atomic"?
- 📝 How did the USSR manage to innovate in an environment characterized by government censorship and high bureaucracy?
- 📝 How did 300,000 people survive the 3 1/2 year siege of Sarajevo?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 When and how did people begin to consider slavery immoral?
- 📝 How and when was the modern company ownership structure invented?
- 📝 How did people deal with ice on the roads during the horse-and-buggy era?
- 📝 How did the ruling class in the Muslim world react to the discovery and colonization of the Americas?
- 📝 How did people react to Cavendish bananas when they first replaced the Gros Michel strain?
- 📝 During the Great Depression, did the US Army do a study involving paying people to dig a hole and fill it back up?
- 📝 How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- 📝 When and how did the Han ethnic group become by far the biggest ethnic group in China?
- 📝 How was the modern geographic boundary between Europe and Asia decided?
- 📝 How long did it take for a diplomat to travel between Berlin and Vienna in the 1770's?
- 📝 How expensive were castles? And how were the costs distributed?
- 📝 How did people have access to ice in warm areas before the industrial revolution?
- 📝 How did the monks whose job was to copy books react to Gutenberg's printing press?
- 📝 How did people realize that America was a different continent?
- 📝 Were bookshops 'common' in the late 19th century, and how did they differ from modern ones?
- 📝 How common was marriage between nobles and peasants in the Middle Ages?