Giufi Salaria Salt Town
About
This Numidian civitas carried the epithet Salaria, salt-related, right in its official Roman name, distinguishing it from another African town called plain Giufi. It sat beside the shallow salt pan now known as Sebkha-El-Coursia, whose flats still work by the same solar-evaporation process Roman-era residents relied on. Two of its bishops are recorded attending church councils at Carthage in the fifth and seventh centuries, proof the town endured for centuries after Trajan's reign.
What happened here
Shallow pans are cut into the flats behind a beach or a lagoon and filled at high tide through a gate. The water is walked through a sequence of pans, each shallower and saltier than the last, and the sun does the rest over the summer. In late season the crust is raked into ridges, left to drain, then carried off in baskets. The work is hot, glaring and hard on the feet, and it is done by contracted labour on a short season. Salt preserves fish and meat, cures hides and pays part of the state's revenue, so the pans are regulated and often leased from the state. A salina needs sun, wind and a tide, and it shuts down entirely when it rains.
Sources
Nearby
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