From 3 to 4 October 2022, an international scientific meeting on the topic of ancient salt production will be held at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome/Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome (KNIR). International experts from various disciplinary backgrounds are brought together to present and discuss the current state of research related to a diverse set of research topics concerning salt. The presentations and discussions are centred around five major themes:

  1. Ethnographic evidence of salt production;
  2. Ancient evidence of the use of briquetage;
  3. Ancient evidence of the use of salterns;
  4. Analytical methods and biology;
  5. The socio-economic context of salt production.

The objective is to establish an interdisciplinary and up-to-date overview of research into salt production by pre-industrial European societies, which will result in a collaborative publication in supplement to a high-profile international journal.

Furthermore, taking place at the end of the first year of the 4-year research project Salt and Power. Early states, Rome and resource control, the meeting will help the project team to reflect on the current plans and assumptions.

Due to the lack of a reliable research strategy the detection of salt production in pre and protohistory has been extremely difficult. By linking studies on salt production in the natural sciences and humanities, the meeting and future work of the project will help to develop a novel research methodology that will enhance our understanding of buried structures and layers that are related to salt-procurement activities. This will not only form a valuable contribution to the understanding of the role of essential resources such as salt in the rise of early states, but it will also help preserve the sites that are threatened to be destroyed by urbanisation pressure and strong marine erosion.

  • 11.3.2026   The workshop poster can be downloaded here

Production and Demand of Salt in Ancient Italy from the Bronze Age to the Roman Period

Attema P., Alessandri L., Bulian F., Sevink J., Sotgia A., 2025, Production and Demand of Salt in Ancient Italy from the Bronze Age to the Roman Period, in Eubanks, P.N., Dumas, A.A., McKillop, H., Alexianu, M. (eds) Meridians of Salt. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, Springer, Cham DOI 10.1007/978-3-031-96692-7_11

Drone-based laser scanning for improved archaeological surveys in heavily vegetated zones: A Roman coastline case study

Alessandri L., Baiocchi V., Guarnieri A., Ciardulli A.M., 2025, Drone-based laser scanning for improved archaeological surveys in heavily vegetated zones: A Roman coastline case study., IEEE 12th International Workshop on Metrology for AeroSpace (MetroAeroSpace), p. 838-842, DOI 10.1109/MetroAeroSpace64938.2025.11114655

From pencil to pixel: assessing Ceramatic 2.0 against manual and laser-aided techniques in archaeological pottery documentation

Alessandri L., Cardarelli L., Cesaretti A., Dan R., Fiorillo A., Sotgia A., Cusimano L., Della Sala G.A., Gianni V., Rossi C., 2025, From pencil to pixel: assessing Ceramatic 2.0 against manual and laser-aided techniques in archaeological pottery documentation, Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, DOI 10.1016/j.daach.2025.e00435

Bronze Age to Roman period salt production in the coastal areas of peninsular Italy: Palaeoenvironments, production methods and archaeological evidence

Bulian F., Alessandri L., Attema P., Sevink J. 2024, Bronze Age to Roman period salt production in the coastal areas of peninsular Italy: Palaeoenvironments, production methods and archaeological evidence, Quaternary Science Review, 344, DOI 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108930

Studying Coastal Resources and Resource Control in the Context of Early State Formation on the Tyrrhenian Coast (Italy)

Attema P. A. J., Alessandri L., Bulian F., De Neef W., Sevink J. Studying Coastal Resources and Resource Control in the Context of Early State Formation on the Tyrrhenian Coast (Italy), in Pirson F., Schütt B., Schulz T. (eds), Tagungen und Kongresse 3, p. 59-65, DOI (book) 10.34780/b573-qb3b

Salt in Late Iron Age Italy. A multidisciplinary approach to the exploration of Italy’s coastal exploitation sites: Piscina Torta (Ostia, Rome) case study

Alessandri L., Attema P. A. J., Bulian F., Sevink J., De Neef W., Baiocchi V., Rolfo M. F., Cifani G., Ceccato Z. L. A., Cusimano L., De Vos M., Di Giacomo L., Fiorillo A., Gianni V., Improta C., Rossi C., Ter Horst Y., Vagliviello S., Salt in Late Iron Age Italy. A multidisciplinary approach to the exploration of Italy’s coastal exploitation sites: Piscina Torta (Ostia, Rome) case study, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports DOI j.jasrep.2023.104361

Low-cost GPS/GNSS Real Time Kinematic receiver to build a cartographic grid on the ground for an archaeological survey at Piscina Torta (Italy)

Alessandri L., Baiocchi V., Monti F., Cusimano L., Fiorillo A., Gianni V., Rossi C., Attema P. A. J., Rolfo M. F., Low-cost GPS/GNSS Real Time Kinematic receiver to build a cartographic grid on the ground for an archaeological survey at Piscina Torta (Italy), ACTA IMEKO, 12(4) DOI 10.21014/actaimeko.v12i4.1561

By |2025-10-14T13:40:39+01:00August 25th, 2022|

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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