"To handle" (gem. Handel - Trade) and "near tracks well worn" prompts us to consider that "the stuff" moved ways existing till now: from outside the caravan with "undreamed of treasures" was perceived as usual group of people travelling together on a trade expedition. The secret of “the stuff” should remain, but it does not mean that its safety has not been provided by necessary quantity of true and probably good armed people.
Can we define time, e.g., plus-minus 25 years, when keepers of a secret have decided and could select sufficient group of people from certain quantity of people for such protection?
That is, the possibility of that selection for so called cargo support has arisen after keepers of a secret were organized as legal group and their inexact, but official initiative has actually been approved by church and the authorities.
Here there is nothing new ‘cos the serious literature says that crusades began not for the sake of protection of pilgrims and so forth (now you can smile).
Subquestion is: whether "tracks well worn" known to keepers of a secret were used because their fathers already moved these ways (first non-organized crusaders), because keepers of secret came back to the Western Europe (France?) more than once through Germany, because …?
We can assume, build versions only about quantity of those people, as well as destiny of these people, destiny of any individual. Certainly, some facts from life of involved people can be useful to us.
Even if I am mistaken and carts moved from the West to the East.
For example, transport column consisted of 30-90 carts, the quantity of people - minimum 100 persons, max 450 and what further..?
Therefore cassiopeans hint focus our attention on horses.
If they searched "green pasture" (they did not have a possibility to reserved or transport with or to use existing places with a forage; more: they did not want to show it, to show the intentions, the plan and duration of travel), i.e. they have started to travel in the early spring or in winter and have faced a forage problem, probably, in first cold or snowy days, but did not find, have not found these pastures - then THE WHOLE caravan should stop somewhere, and one of the major signs of this stop were/are not people, but remains of horses. As it was in a case with cass’ hint about american Horseheads, when we can find such information:
“Horseheads is the first and only town and village in the United States dedicated to the service of the American Military Horse...The journey had been particularly severe and wearing upon the animals and their food supply found insufficient. Arriving about six miles north of Fort Reid on September 24, 1779 they were obliged to dispose of a large number of sick and disabled horses. The number of horses was so great that they were quite noticeable, and the native Iroquois collected the skulls and arranged them in a line along the trail. That spot, from that time forward was referred to as the “valley of the horse’s heads” and is still known by the name given to it by the Iroquois.”
That is the local population "has named" an unknown and “now” abandoned place?
With "clay" there we should remember that sometimes "gal-, galle" in German language designates wet or even a godforsaken place...
With the same degree of probability
our "Halle" means “a hall” in German.
Why "halle" has reminded me not of salt or Handel's birthplace, but about a place with enough space? Because these people carried something more valuable, sacred, they were sepulchers simultaneously, and I will dare to illustrate it with a known picture after my Photoshops experiments a la “A: Best to split the image, head to head. Vertically.” (The citation from session 31 October 1998: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,26592.msg319793.html):
Skull (bones)..?
There is also other small probability of a binding to "a horse" theme: "galle" in German means not only a gall bladder, but a word which is adhered to a problem of movement of horses, illness of horse feet (gem. Galle - Windpuff; besides: the horse does not have a gall bladder organ as such).
Other pleasant parallel: if "treasures" could be found in or under a stable in Jerusalem temple why these heavy things have not finished own European way also in places where the horse stops, somewhere in "field ... as of yet undreamed of treasures"? It’s logical circle, isn’t it?