[dragontamer]

> Do you mean salt was worth as much as gold, literally?

EDIT: Deleted my previous comment.

EDIT: I seem to have gotten the story backwards. It was West-Africa who needed the salt, but they had so many gold-mines that Gold was near worthless. Woops!!

So any European who brought salt past the Sahara Desert could trade 1-lb of salt for 1-lb of gold.

[kikokikokiko]

This is 100% BS. It probably comes from the same myth that in ancient times, people were paid in salt, since it was sooooo valueable, and ergo, salary.