Albinetz, Constantin et al.: Catalogul expoziţiei Drumul Sării (Satu Mare, 2018)
Rezumat în limba engleză
area of its confluence with the Tisa. The upper limit of the said chronological interval is set approximately at the mid-18th century AD, and it roughly designates the beginnings of capitalist economy in the Carpathian Basin. Although the archaeological and historical research has hitherto made remarkable progress especially during the last two decades, our knowledge regarding the salt extraction and trade is still quite fragmentary. Thus it can be said that some periods, such as the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1.600/1.500 - 1.150 BC), the Early Iron Age (cca. 1.150 - 800 î. Hr.), the period of Roman Dacia (106 - 271/5 AD) and the Middle Ages (ca. 900 - 1700 BC) provide quite rich amounts of information concerning the question at hand, while others, like the late stages of the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2.400 - 2.000 BC) and the second period of the Iron Age (cca. 400 - 180 BC) are much poorer in this regard. Further still, certain periods such as the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 - 1600/1500 BC), the latter part of the Early Iron Age (ca. 800 - 400 î. Hr.), and the pre-Roman period (ca. 180-106 BC) have yet to offer any information concerning the question of salt extraction and trade. The circulation of people, goods and technologies on the salt road With regard to the archaeological evidence of salt commerce, a pivotal role is played by the diffusion of traded goods, which with the help of certain anthropological models can illustrate instances of cultural mobility. Without entering into the details of what is a vast literature on the subject, it is generally accepted that cultural mobility is illustrated in the archaeological record through the ways in which material culture is mediated, received and transformed when people engage in longer journeys crossing different cultural environments. Cultural mobility has at its base three categories: the mobility of people, the physical mobility of objects, and the transfer of knowledge and immaterial culture. The present exhibition shows that these main categories are intertwined and do not exclude each-other. The importance of salt trade is presented from the perspective of Fernand Braudel’s concept of longue durée, which asserts that history can move and evolve according to varying rhythms. The surface only shows a thin layer of evental history characterized by short and rapid historical oscillations. However beneath this surface one finds successive layers of history which are in effect echoes of long-term process and of long periods of stagnation, a phenomenon which Braudel calls “history being the prisoner of the longue durée". The history of the longue durée is expressed at the level of collective mentalities, of the relationship with the environment, of the exploitation of natural resources, and of the economic flow which develops between different ecosystems. The circulation of salt between Transylvania and the Hungarian Plain has determined specific modalities of pork preservation which became part of the local collective identity. In these areas the ham prepared in salt became the main staple food already in prehistoric times according to the osteological analysis. (Traducere: David Matei-Petruţ) 63
