National Currency Collection
Ethiopia, 1 amoli
Story
You can’t put gold in your soup
Because of its high value and usefulness, salt was used as a medium of exchange in parts of Asia and Africa. Salt makes curious money. For a start, it readily dissolves in water and it can be very crumbly. But it has great advantages over gold: with salt you can clean wounds, preserve meat and flavour supper. Roman soldiers received a measure of salt with their pay hence the root word for “salary”.
Item Details
Categorization
Collection
Proto-currency
Class
Africa
Name
Foodstuffs
Form
Salt block
Locations
Country
Ethiopia
Denominations
1 amoli
Measurements
Object
Horizontal
198.00mm
Vertical
45.00mm
Thickness
58.00mm
Materials
Object
Salt, natural fibre
