The ‘Briquetage de la Seille’ (Lorraine, France): proto-industrial salt production in the European Iron Age

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

E-ISSN: 1745-1744|80|309|558-566

ISSN: 0003-598x

Source: Antiquity, Vol.80, Iss.309, 2006-09, pp. : 558-566

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Abstract

The authors describe the first recognition of briquetage in Europe and the subsequent appreciation of the great prehistoric salt industry. Central to Iron Age production was the site of Briquetage de la Seille, where broken salt containers survive in mounds 12 metres high and half a kilometre long. New techniques map the source of brine, the workshops and the boilers. Salt production here knew two boom periods: the eighth to sixth and the second to first centuries BC.