Iron Age Salmas is located in the historic
Azerbaijan region. Its archaeological relics, which date as far back as the
Urartian kingdom (860–590 BC), attest to its long human habitation.
Classical Age in the Khan-Takhti village near Salmas, constructed during the reign of the
Sasanian monarch
Ardashir I ()Salmas was part of the
Armenian province of
Nor Shirakan (also known as Persarmenia), which was inhabited by
Armenians. A
rock relief erected during the reign of the
Sasanian monarch
Ardashir I () 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. 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. 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. 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. The 9th-century Muslim historian
al-Baladhuri reported that the taxes of Salmas had been long given to
Mosul, suggesting that during the
Arab conquest of Iran it was Arab armies from
Diyar Rabi'a that conquered Salmas. During the reign of
Marzuban ibn Muhammad () of the Daylamite
Sallarid dynasty, Salmas became subjugated to his rule. In 943/44, Marzuban ibn Muhammad repelled an attack on Salmas by the
Hamdanid dynasty, and in 955/56, it was attacked by the
Kurdish military leader
Daysam. By 975, Salmas was seemingly under the rule of the Kurdish
Rawadid dynasty, who after 983/84 ruled all of Azerbaijan. Salmas is described by the 10th-century Islamic geographers
Ibn Hawkal and
al-Istakhri as a tiny town in Azerbaijan with a sturdy wall in a fertile location. Another 10th-century Islamic geographer,
al-Maqdisi, considers the town to have been part of the administration of Armenia and inhabited by Kurds, which according to the modern scholar and orientalist
Clifford Edmund Bosworth must had been part of the
Hadhabani tribe. In 1054/55, the
Seljuk Empire imposed their rule on the
Rawwadids, and in 1070 removed them from power resulting in Salmas being captured by the
Seljuks. In 1064, the Seljuk sultan
Alp Arslan () made a military campaign against the
Byzantines, Armenians and Georgians, in which the Kurds of Salmas took part. Salmas was in ruins during the lifetime of the Muslim scholar
Yaqut al-Hamawi (died 1229), but according to the geographer
Hamdallah Mustawfi (died after 1339/40), it was once again thriving in the middle of the 14th-century. The
vizier Khwaja Taj al-Din Ali Shah Tabrizi had rebuilt the town's 8,000-step-long wall during the reign of
Ilkhanate ruler
Ghazan (), and Salmas's revenues—presumably those of the entire district—amounted to 39,000
dinars, a large amount. Another mention of the city was made in 1281, when its bishop made the trip to the consecration of the
Church of the East patriarch
Yaballaha in
Baghdad. 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. However, the area was retaken by the Kara Koyunlu in 1447 after the death of Shah Rukh. The
Lak tribe settled in the Salmas area at the end of the 16th century. It seems that at the time, the governor of Lak and Salmas was interchangeable. Today, there remains a possible final trace of the tribe in the form of a
Lakestan area of the tribe which post-
Safavids lived dispersed across the country. In March 1915
Cevdet Bey ordered 800
Assyrians of Salmas to be killed.''''
Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the
Church of the East was murdered by the
Kurdish chieftain
Simko Shikak in Salmas in March 1918. Around the advent of the 1910s,
Imperial Russia started to station infantry and
Cossacks in Salmas. 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. ==Demographics==