WOW.... this book just keeps amazing me. First the Chinese and now the Egyptians. Never could I have imagined that salt was connected to so many things in history. I always thought that bread had been discovered in the U.S. but now I realize that it obviously was not.
At first I was wondering how this chapter was going to relate to salt but then it finally did. It is cool to see how the Egyptians handled salt compared to how the Chinese did. The Chinese were able to discover natural gas, but the Egyptians were able to discover food upon food and they used it to preserve their dead.The techniques in how they got the salt were also the same and yet different. The Egyptians did not dig holes into the ground like the Chinese did, but they did boil water.
It was pretty awesome how the Egyptians were able to figure out the preserving of meat. It is weird how the the Egyptians were so crazy on fish but would not eat pig. In the world today we seem to eat ten times more pig than we do fish. It is amazing that the Egyptians had many different kinds of salt. I never knew there were more than a few kinds.
Egypt trading salt reminds me of the U.S. trading oil. The Egyptians trading salt for everything just like we trade money for oil. I can not believe what the world of the Egyptians would have been like with out the discovery of salt. PRAISE SALT!!
7 comments:
Yeah. I thought it was so bizarre that pig farmers were made social outcasts. If they weren't so unkind they could have been credited with the discovery of cured ham. Now that would have been cool! Olives are okay, but I'm not a big fan. I guess that preserving the dead pretty much trumps ham anyway. The Egyptians pwn at doing cool things with salt :D
Yes, salt is awesome! It really seems to connect different cultures. I mean I didn't think it would, but I was wrong. The Egyptians did a lot with salt, especially preserving food and the dead. Who knew salt meant so much?
Yes.Yes.salt.salt ...I see your connection between salt and the foriegn oil trade....i didn't think of that!....I think all people including pig farmers can communicate through salt!
I didnn't realize the process it take for the people of China and Eypt to use salt. It seemed like a lot of work and i'm glad that they new they stumbled on to something great. It's interesting they used any means possible to transport SALT.
I always thought bread was started in Itialy since its called italian bread...I was wrong.
It was interesting to see how the two cultures did differ on the idea of salt. I think they built off eachother to discover new ways of using salt.
Pig is fatty, thats why americans eat it. Fish is super duper high in protein and good for you...thats why we eat pig in america.
I dont understand how they can classify the salt just by the color..maybe it was dirty and they thought they discovered a new type. Somehow they were able to tell though.
Without salt they would all be poor eating unraised bread :)
Yum. Food. I love food! I didn't realize either that bread had been invented SO long ago. It really is amazing what they did back then. It is so weird that they didn't eat pig. I really don't like ham, so I wouldn't of minded to of been an Egyptian. I overall just could not believe how much salt has to relate to different cultures.
I like ham, i don't know why pig farmers were dirty. Why did pig farming exist if it was so horrible? honestly.
I like bread. They are crafty, making it rise and whatnot.
I am struggling soooo much at making my comments sound academic.
my "word verification" says spigs. Which is appropriate...
Yeah, glad to see you are still getting a kick out of the salt connections. Mr. K is pretty good at jumping around the world and showing how salt had an impact.
I figured as we have already studied about the ancient civs, that your class would now have a solid background in some of this stuff. (ex. already talked about mummification)
Natural Gas and other inventions via the Chinese was pretty significant, and well ahead of the rest of the world for their time period. As you mention, preserving food was also a big bonus for salt, which Mr. K continues
You compare salt to today's oil trade. Many students seem to do this, which is an interesting connection to the modern world. I guess it was similar in that it was a valuable commodity.
Nice work,
Mr. Farrell
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