Posted by Steve Price on April 27, 1999 at 19:47:09:
In Reply to: Re: Time delay posted by Erol Abit on April 27, 1999 at 17:49:03:
Dear Erol,
Your suggestion may very well be moving toward an answer to the salt bag question, but in a way that might surprise you.
First, salt bags are believed to have been used to carry rock salt for the sheep, not for the nomad's dinner table, and if this belief is correct then whether they enjoyed salt with their meals is not relevant.
But someone else has written to me suggesting that the ened for salt by sheep depends on the altitude of the pastures, and that this differed between NW Persian and Turkmen tribes. So your explanation may be sort of correct, although the use of salt would be related to the eneds of hte sheep, not to the tastes of the shepherds. It is, at least, as plausible as any proposal about the salt bags that I've heard so far.
Best regards,
Steve Price