The first map of salt deposits in Romania (1780). Current corresponding toponyms

Affiliations

• Department of Interdisciplinary Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Str. Lascăr Catargi 54, 700107 Iași, Romania
• “A. Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology, Str. Th. Codrescu 2, 700481 Iași, Romania

History

Received October 29, 2017
Accepted November 20, 2017
Published November 30, 2017

Key words

salt deposits
salt springs
Carpathians
toponymy
Fichtel’s map (1780)

Abstract

The history of salt exploitation in the Carpathian arc area is far from being complete regarding certain periods of Romania’s historical provinces, although a lot has been written on this topic. A map of the salt deposits drafted in 1780 represents one of the most important achievements in this field. One of the mandatory aspects of this historical approach is the identification of places from where salt is or was extracted. Following a short history of the primary documentations of the exploitation of salt on the territory of Romania, this study presents Fichtel’s (1780) contribution to identifying the salt deposits on this territory. The updating of the toponyms on the map poses no difficulties for the historical provinces Moldavia and Wallachia, yet the situation is different in the case of the toponyms in Transylvania, since the nomenclature from the Hungarian domination period (until 1918) was mostly modified starting with the year 1919. Correspondences from the current nomenclature were provided for all these toponyms. The study offers an update of the localization of salt wells or springs and sedimentary deposits of salt, as indicated by Fichtel, by identifying present corresponding toponyms for the ones indicated on the map.

Copyright

© 2018 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. The article is freely accessible under the terms and conditions of the CC-BY Open Access licence.