Salt and Human Health: Science, Archaeology, Ancient Texts and Traditional Practices of Eastern Romania

Ethnoarchaeology of Salt in Romania

“…Recent research has shown that a considerable part of halotherapeutic practices identified by ethnographic inquiries carried out in Moldavia are to be found in the Greek and Latin world. The common clinical specter of ancient and modern (but traditional) therapies includes gum and dental diseases, skin burns, headaches, angina, tonsillitis, boils, inflammations of the skin and dermatosis, kidney and stomach pains, lumbar and leg pains, joint pains, dog or cat bites, frostbite, mouth and ear diseases, and bleeding (Curcă 2007;Sandu et al 2010). The existence of some common therapies in such different chronological and cultural spaces implies that salt has had a strong therapeutic dimension in prehistory, a reality commonly neglected by archaeologists.…”

Earliest salt working in the world: From excavation to microscopy at the prehistoric sites of Ţolici and Lunca (Romania)

“…Such combined use of soil micromorphology and SEM-EDS has already obtained pertinent results from salt working sites, as at the Iron Age and Roman coastal site of Essex (Macphail et al 2012) or at Maya Marco Gonzalez, Belize (Macphail et al 2017). Other workers employing SEM-EDS found traces of Na and Cl in pottery from the first millennium BC (Flad et al 2005) and, in Romania, identified salt in briquetage at the early 4th millennium sites of Tolici and Cacica (Weller 2000;Sandu et al 2012;Tencariu et al 2015). However, to our knowledge, no analysis of this type has yet been conducted on sedimentary deposits produced by the first exploitation of salt springs during the 6th millennium B.C.…”

Implications in Halotherapy of Aerosols from the Salt Mine Targu Ocna—Structural-Functional Characteristics

“…Currently, the effect of the environment in the salt mines is known, where along with the saline aerosols, the internal energy field of the rock salt block has a beneficial role on the human body. The therapeutic effect of the halosalt mining climate and the Slatina Springs (natural salt solution/brine) is given by the set of physico-chemical and microclimatic factors/agents, which manifest as an integrated system, with complex effects on the human body [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

“…Of these, in the Moldova area, in the Eastern Carpathians, there were two rock salt mines, the one at Cacica, from Suceava county, and the famous Targu Ocna (Tg. Ocna) Salt Mine, from Bacău county [9][10][11][12][13][14]. The last one is located in the Trotuş Valley, in a special natural setting, not far from the well-known balneo-climatic resort Slănic Moldova.…”