which area of medieval africa was most associated with the production of salt
Sub-Saharan Africa
title: Salt text: empire. Herodotus described salt trading routes across Libya back in the 5th century BC. In the early years of the Roman Empire, roads were built for the transportation of salt from the salt imported at Ostia to the capital. In Africa, salt was used as currency south of the Sahara, and slabs of rock salt were used as coins in Abyssinia. Moorish merchants in the 6th century traded salt for gold, weight for weight. The Tuareg have traditionally maintained routes across the Sahara especially for the transportation of salt by Azalai (salt caravans). The caravans still cross the desert from title: Salt text: preservation. Some of the earliest evidence of salt processing dates to around 6,000 B.C., when people living in the area of present-day Romania boiled spring water to extract salts; a salt-works in China dates to approximately the same period. Salt was also prized by the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites, Egyptians, and the Indians. Salt became an important article of trade and was transported by boat across the Mediterranean Sea, along specially built salt roads, and across the Sahara on camel caravans. The scarcity and universal need for salt have led nations to go to title: Salt text: and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after it was defeated in the Third Punic War (146 BC). Salt may have been used for barter in connection with the obsidian trade in Anatolia in the Neolithic Era. Salt was included among funeral offerings found in ancient Egyptian tombs from the third millennium BC, as were salted birds, and salt fish. From about 2800 BC, the Egyptians began exporting salt fish to the Phoenicians in return for Lebanon cedar, glass, and the dye Tyrian purple; the Phoenicians traded Egyptian salted fish and salt from North Africa throughout their Mediterranean trade title: Economic history of Africa text: as part of important trade routes. The kingdoms of Mali and Songhai Empire grew along the Niger River between 1200 and 1590. Berber traders from the Sahel—a region south of the Sahara Desert—traded dates, copper, horses, weapons and cloth that they brought from north Africa in Camel trains. Trade with the Berber people, and other groups, drove the growth of the Ghana empire, which traded its gold, kola nuts, and slaves. West Africans created a demand for salt, which was collected at desert oases, and which they used to preserve food as well as for seasoning it. In 1324, Mansa title: Sub-Saharan Africa text: spanned the southern Sahara, south Arabia and the Sahel along the western shore of the Red Sea. Located in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, Aksum was deeply involved in the trade network between India and the Mediterranean. Growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period circa the 4th century BCE, it rose to prominence by the 1st century CE. The Aksumites constructed monolithic stelae to cover the graves of their kings, such as King Ezana's Stele. The later Zagwe dynasty, established in the 12th century, built churches out of solid rock. These rock-hewn structures include the Church of St. George at Lalibela.