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.

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