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Salmas () is a city in the Central District of Salmas County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran, serving as capital of both the county and the district.
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 Oriental studies 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 Sallarids, 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 Kurds 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 Byzantine Empire, 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 , a large amount.
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.Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (1993 reprint) "Salmas" E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936 Volume 4, E.J. Brill, New York, page 118,
In the Battle of Salmas on 17–18 September 1429, the Kara Koyunlu were defeated by Shah Rukh who was consolidating Timurid dynasty holdings west of Lake Urmia.Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (1993 reprint) "Tabrīz" E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936 Volume 4, E.J. Brill, New York, page 588, 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-Safavid Iran lived dispersed across the country.
In March 1915 Djevdet Bey ordered 800 Assyrian people of Salmas to be killed. Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East was murdered by the Kurds chieftain Simko Shikak in Salmas in March 1918.O'Shea, Maria T. (2004) Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan Routledge, New York, page 100, Nisan, Mordechai (2002) Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression (2nd edition) McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina, page 187,
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.
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