Salmas

The original name of Salmas was Dilman, which is probably related to the Daylamites who sometimes controlled the region. In the 19th-century, it was known as Shapur.[10]

The rock relief in the Khan-Takhti village near Salmas, constructed during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Ardashir I (r. 224–242)

Salmas's archaeological relics, which date as far back as the Urartian kingdom (860 BC–590 BC), attest to its long human habitation.[10] Salmas was part of the Armenian province of Nor Shirakan (also known as Persarmenia),[10][11] which was inhabited by Armenians.[11] A rock relief erected during the reign of the Sasanian monarch Ardashir I (r. 224–242) is located in the Khan-Takhti village near Salmas. This rock relief illustrates two akin scenarios in which a standing man receives a ring from a man riding a horse.[12]

The standing men's names are subject to interpretation, but the horsemen are typically considered to be Ardashir I and his son and heir, Shapur I. The German orientalist Ferdinand Justi (died 1907) theorized that the relief is meant to show the Armenians' gratitude to Ardashir I and Shapur I, something which some later scholars supported. The Iranologist Ehsan Shavarebi considers this theory to be "logical" but stresses that "we need more investigations on the event depicted on the relief." He suggests that the rock relief is meant to illustrate the probable peace made between Ardashir I and the Kingdom of Armenia.[12] When the Arsacid house of Armenia was abolished and the country was made a Sasanian province in 428, Nor Shirakan and Paytakaran were incorporated into the Sasanian province of Adurbadagan.[13]

Two archeological sites showing inhabitation during the Sasanian era has been found near Salmas. One of them is known as Haftan Tepe, which contains Sasanian-era pottery akin to those found in Takht-e Soleyman. The other is called Qazun Basi, located to the south of Salmas. They were likely used as military and administrative hubs.[14]

Salmas was held by the Kurdish Rawadid dynasty and frequented by the Hadhabani tribe in the 10-11th centuries. Al-Maqdisi described it as a Kurdish town who had built a wall around the city.[15][4]

Another Mention of the city was made in 1281, when its Assyrian bishop made the trip to the consecration of the Assyrian Church of the East patriarch Yaballaha in Baghdad.[16]

In the Battle of Salmas on 17–18 September 1429, the Kara Koyunlu were defeated by Shah Rukh who was consolidating Timurid holdings west of Lake Urmia.[17] However, the area was retaken by the Kara Koyunlu in 1447 after the death of Shah Rukh.

In March 1915 Cevdet Bey ordered 800 Assyrians of Salmas to be killed.[18] Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East was murdered by the Kurdish chieftain Simko Shikak in Salmas in March 1918.[19][20][21]

Around the advent of the 1910s, Imperial Russia started to station infantry and Cossacks in Salmas.[22] The Russians retreated at the time of Enver Pasha's offensive in the Iran-Caucasus region, but returned in early 1916, and stayed up to the wake of the Russian Revolution.[22]

• Stepanos V of Salmast (d. 1567) – Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church
• Yohannan Gabriel (1758–1833) – Chaldean Catholic bishop of Salmas
• Nicholas I Zaya (d. 1855) – Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans
• Raffi (1835–1888) – Armenian novelist
• Paul Bedjan (1838–1920) – Chaldean Catholic priest and orientalist
• Abraham Guloyan (1893–1983) – Politician
• Murad Kostanyan (1902–1989) – Actor
• Hossein Sadaghiani (1903-1982) - The first ever manager and head coach of Iran national football team (1941-1951) and the first ever Iranian soccer player to play for foreign clubs (R. Charleroi S.C. and Fenerbahce SK) and in a European league
• Ardeshir Ovanessian (c. 1905–1990) – Communist leader
• Timur Lakestani (1915–2011) – aka Father of Iranian Electrical Industry
• Jafar Salmasi (1918–2000) – weightlifter
• Emmanuel Agassi (1930–2021) – boxer and father of Andre Agassi
• Hadi Asghari (b. 1981) – football player

• 
  Overall View of Imam St. and Shahrdari Sq.
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  Islamic Republic Blvd., Near Panahi Technical School
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  Khan Takhti-Rd near Salmas
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  The Haftvan Church
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  Chaldean Catholic Church in Salmas
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  Salmas
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  An angled front view of Salmas Imam Khomeini Prayer House, 2017
• 
  A view of Nation Park in a Winter night, 2016

• 1930 Salmas earthquake
• Nor Shirakan
• Battle of Dilman
• Assyrian homeland
• Khoy Khanate

• Atabaki, Touraj (2006). Iran and the First World War: Battleground of the Great Powers. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1860649646.
• Bosworth, C.E. (1995). "Salmās". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.
• Ghodrat-Dizaji, Mehrdad (2007). "Administrative Geography of the Early Sasanian Period: The Case of Ādurbādagān". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 45 (1): 87–93. doi:10.1080/05786967.2007.11864720. S2CID 133088896.
• Ghodrat-Dizaji, Mehrdad (2010). "Ādurbādagān during the Late Sasanian Period: A Study in Administrative Geography". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 48 (1): 69–80. doi:10.1080/05786967.2010.11864774. S2CID 163839498.
• Shahinyan, Arsen (2016). "Northern Territories of the Sasanian Atropatene and the Arab Azerbaijan". Iran and the Caucasus. 20 (2): 191–203. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20160203.
• Shavarebi, Ehsan (2014). "A Reinterpretation of the Sasanian Relief at Salmās". Iran and the Caucasus. Brill. 18 (2): 115–133. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20140203.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Salmas.

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• "Salmas Map – Satellite Images of Salmas", Maplandia