Question: why was salt considered as valuable as gold in ancient mali

title: Mali Empire
text: The next great unit of exchange in the Mali Empire was salt . Salt was as valuable , if not more valuable , than gold in sub-Saharan Africa . It was cut into pieces and spent on goods with close to equal buying power throughout the empire . While it was as good as gold in the north , it was even better in the south . The people of the south needed salt for their diet , but it was extremely rare . The northern region on the other hand had no shortage of salt . Every year merchants entered Mali via Oualata with camel loads of salt to sell in Niani . According to Ibn Battuta who visited Mali in the mid-14th century , one camel load of salt sold at Walata for 8 -- 10 mithqals of gold , but in Mali proper it realised 20 -- 30 ducats and sometimes even 40 . One particular source of salt in the Mali Empire was salt - mining sites located in Taghaza . Ibn Battuta had written that in Taghaza there were no trees and there is only sand and the salt mines . Nobody lived in the area except the Musafa servants who worked to dig the salts and lived on dates imported from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a valley , camel meat and millet imported from the Sudan . The buildings were constructed from slabs of salt and roofed with camel skins . The salt was dug from the ground and cut into thick slabs , two of which were loaded onto each camel where they would be taken south across the desert to Oualata and sold . The value of the salt was chiefly determined by the transport costs . Ibn Battuta mentions that the value of salt increased fourfold when transported between Oualata and the Malian capital . Copper 

Answer: answer: While it was as good as gold in the north , it was even better in the south . The people of the south needed salt for their diet , but it was extremely rare .  Ibn Battuta mentions that the value of salt increased fourfold when transported between Oualata and the Malian capital .