User blog comment:The Milkman/Phantasy Philosophy: Elder Scrolls/@comment-3025184-20120913195304/@comment-5280592-20120914215514

If I remembered the name of the empire my arguement would make way more sense.

Uses of gold:

Heavy

Maliable

Good for long term use in electrical appliances without rust (does not matter in TES)

Shiny

???

Uses of Salt:

Used to keep food from rotting and turning to a worthless pile of crap

Lightweight

Disinfectant

Must find notes from AP about why salt is better than gold.

I think another reason was that in the desert gold is basically a heavyweight piece of shit, and salt is practical.

^

You have no water in the desert. Salt cannot be plucked out of fresh water. It must be mined from the ground (where all those cool minerals come from).