Taghaza
Taghaza is a destroyed town in present-day Mali. It was once an important salt-mining centre, visited by Ibn Batuta in 1352. Slaves quarried the salt in 200 lb. blocks which were then transported 500 miles to Timbuktu by camel and exchanged for gold. Taghaza produced salt throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under Berber control.
After the town's destruction by the Moroccan Judar Pasha's forces in the late sixteenth century, Taoudenni took its place as the region's key salt producer.