Today we take salt for granted and we even dare to spread it on streets but salt was a critical element for human life up until not so long ago. Salt production was probably in many ways the world’s first industry; powerful cities and sometimes entire empires rose and fell with salt production, its commerce and its shifting routes. Significant religions, like ancient Egyptian’s, revolved around the availability of salt from Lake Natron and the discovery of its properties in mummification. Salt was so precious that people were occasionally paid in salt (a salary) and for the same reason it was the first commodity to be taxed, ultimately playing a critical role in determining the very nature of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

In my world (an alternate future Earth, same world as here and here), the now closed off Mediterranean Sea is the Mediterranean Waste, a gigantic and utterly alien salt flat 3500 mt below sea level. Needless to say, salt is the most common resource in the continent, and religious sentiments developed around the white, sparkling abyss.

How differently would the societies be if salt was a widespread commodity?

How will the economic relationship between those who have access to this infinite salt mine and those who live in relatively salt poor areas evolve?