It was an important culinary item and crucial ingredient for animal nutrition to facilitate digestion, fertility and reproduction. Salt was also serving as a change to fractions of the imported Austrian Maria Theresa thalers (which had no small change) until the early decades of the 20th century.
The supplies, access and circulation of Maria Theresa thalers were, nevertheless, fairy limited. This made salt as an even more acceptable medium of exchanges amongst many rural northern Ethiopians.
Governments and chiefs also used to collect tributes and taxation in the forms of salt and dispense this salt as salaries for services. One can easily prove this from the tax records of the reign of Tewodros II (r. 1855-68) Ethiopian Calandar.
Further, salt has been a form of salary and a luxury item to be offered as a gift to social elites, favorites and visitors. It also served as a means of accumulation of capital. This versatile type of salt with multifunction is variously known as 'common salt', 'rock salt, or locally amolé, mined in the Afar lowlands, in northeastern Ethiopia. By the early 20th century, the Italian consul in Magala, M.A. Tancredi, witnessed that ghiela (then weighing about 0.7kg) and amolie (c.1.68kg)
Afar lowlands were not the only sources of Ethiopian salt though. Studies indicate the existence of alternative salt deposits in the Red Sea coast (Eritrean sea salt), the bay and hinterlands of Tajura; small salt lakes of Ogaden, the crater lakes of Dillo and Sogida, near Mega (Sidamo), and inland Wabi Valley. And each of these deposits catered to local needs in northern Ethiopia (up to the Takkaze valley). The Sultanate of Aussa and parts of eastern Shawa, the Ogaden Somali (up to Harar), and the BoranaSidamo (southern Ethiopia) and parts of southern Ethiopia (up to southern Shawa) respectively.8 Local salt mining sites in Benishangul also serve local demands in Walagaa.
Many small salt-water springs are identified in former Bale and Harargge provinces that apparently originate from salt layers of the Mesozoic system. Besides,most of the Rift valley lakes are reputed for
their saline waters, which herds of cattle frequently lick them. More geological studies may still reveal further salt deposits in Ethiopia.
The Afar amolé was historically widely circulated than any other salt items; used to play multitudes of socio-economic functions and integrated various social or trading networks across Ethiopia and the Horn. The quest for controlling amolé salt markets taxation and mining sites partly triggered internecine conflicts among several northern Chiopian chiefs. Some how the above article is copied from the study of Tsegay B.Gebrelibanos based on his study.
