by Haleh Brooks

published on 06 August 2014

Article
As a young girl interested in archaeology and history,
mummies always intrigued me. From the intricate Egyptian
mummies to the naturally and beautifully preserved
mummies of the Incas, they seemed to me to be beautiful
pieces of art containing secrets of the ancient past. So
imagine the disappointment I felt, when at the tender age
of eight, I realised that the Persians did not have any
mummies! Actually very few human remains have been
found in the Iranian Plateau. The Royal Achaemenid tombs
in Naghshe Rostam yielded their treasures and human
remains many centuries ago. The Sasanians and the
Achaemenids for that matter, made funerary archaeology a
bit more difficult by practising the Zoroastrian mortuary
rituals, which left very little or no human remains to be
studied by archaeologists.
Now and then a chance discovery of a Royal Persian
Mummy would hit the news, and of course later would turn
out to be a fake. The most famous of these is the Royal
Princess-Mummy thought to be a daughter of Xerxes, this
particular mummy was on sale on the black market for
about 11 million dollars! But of course this amazing find,
which was thought to be the Tutankhamun of the
Achaemenid Empire, almost lead to an international
incident involving Iran, Pakistan, and even the Taliban in
Afghanistan. All this was more or less due to the curator of
the National Museum in Karachi, where the Royal Princess
was being held and stored. Being overwhelmed by this find
of the century, Asma Ibrahim thought she could read the
cuneiform inscriptions on the mummy's gold plaque herself,
ordered numerous CT scans, and also assisted in its
autopsy. However, she forgot one key fact. There are no
records nor evidence that the Achaemenids, who followed
an early type the Zoroastrian faith, would want or need an
embalming according to the Egyptian ritual customs. (The
only remote mention of a possible embalming in ancient
Persia is from Herodotus, who mentions that the Persians
embalmed their dead in wax. Hdt 1.140) Also the pencil
marks around the wooden embellishments on the coffin
should have given her a clue. The 2600 year old Royal
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Princess turned out to be a woman with dyed blond hair,
who had died by having her neck broken in 1996 CE. This
poor, middle-aged woman was either a victim of grave
robbery or was murdered in a mummy factory somewhere
between Iran and Pakistan.
After this disappointment, I came across The Iranian
Saltmen, and I was pleasantly surprised. The Saltmen of
Zanjan were preserved by a very rare form of natural
mummification which had occurred in a salt mine.
Original Saltman Mummy
In 1993 CE miners in the Douzlakh Salt Mine, near Hamzehli
and Chehr Abad villages in Zanjan Province, accidentally
came across a mummified head. The head was very well
preserved, to the extent that his pierced ear was still
holding the gold earring. The hair, beard, and the
moustaches were reddish in colour, and his impressive
leather boot still contained parts of his leg and foot.
The local Zanjan branch of the Miras Farhangi (Zanjan
Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organisation)
was called, and they performed a rescue excavation and
found three iron knives, a pair of short trousers made of
wool, a silver needle, a sling, a leather rope, a grindstone,
some pottery shards, patterned textile fragments, a few
broken bones, and even a walnut. He was found in a
middle of a tunnel, about 45 metres in length.
Saltman's Leather Boot
The local Zanjan branch of the Miras Farhangi, thinking that
this mummy was an individual find, did not investigate the
mine any further. However, in 2004 CE the miners
discovered yet another saltman, and again the local
Zanjan branch of the Miras Farhangi was called in. The
team discovered further remains of a human body along
with a large number of artefacts made of wood, metal
tools, clothing, and pottery.
The Miras-e-Farhangi, realising that they might have
stumbled upon a mine with a long history of usage, finally
got their act together, and started an archaeological
investigation, involving several international research
organisations:
Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research (ICAR),
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Shiraz, Iran
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum
Universitt Zrich, Zentrum fr Evolutionre Medizin
University of Oxford, (RLAHA Oxford), Research
Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art
York University, Institute of Archaeology
Tehran University, The Institute of Parasitology and
Mycology
Zanjan University, Institute of Geomorphology
University of Franche-Comte, Faculty of Sciences &
Techniques
In 2005 CE a systematic excavation began, three more
mummies were excavated, and a sixth remained in situ,
due to lack of funds for its storage. The context of the
remains suggested that a collapse in the mine had caused
the death of the miners in question.
The first mummy, dubbed the "Saltman", is on display in the
National Museum of Iran in Tehran. He still looks very
impressive, I just wish he was displayed a bit better.
This particular "saltman" was originally dated based on the
archaeological material found with him. Sobuti, the Iranian
archaeologist who performed the first rescue excavation,
suggested a date of around 800 BCE based on the clothing
and the accessories found with him, which placed him in the
Neo-Elamite Period (1000-539 BCE). Later, the mummy was
carbon dated, which placed him in 500 CE (1750 BP, that is,
"before present" or 1750 years ago), the height of the
Sasanian Empire. The second "saltman" was carbon dated
to 1554 BP, which placed him in the same era as the first
"saltman", the Sasanian era.
The third, fourth, and the fifth "saltmen" were also carbon
dated. The third body was dated and placed in 2337 BP, the
fourth body in 2301 BP, and the fifth mummy was dated to
2286 BP, placing them all in the Achaemenid period.
Saltman Mummy from Iranian Mine
However, the previous number of five has since increased
to at least 8 individuals. As the further anatomical analysis
revealed that the bones previously thought to have
belonged to one individual belonged to several more.
The isotopic analysis of the human remains revealed where
these miners were from. Some of them were from the
Tehran-Qazvin Plain, which is relatively local to the mine's
locality, while others were from North-Eastern Iran and the
coastal areas around the Caspian Sea, and a few from as
far away as Central Asia.
Furthermore, the archaeozoological finds, such as animal
bones found within the context of the saltmen, showed
that the miners might have eaten sheep, goats, and
probably pigs and cattle, as well. The archaeobotanical
finds recorded showed different cultivated plants were
eaten, indicating an agricultural establishment in the vicinity
of the mine.
The wealth of fabric and other organic material (leather)
worn by the saltmen have allowed a thorough analysis to
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be undertaken, detailing the resources used to make the
fabrics, the processing, the dyes used to colour the fibres
of the garments, and not least they offer an excellent
overview of the changes in cloth types, patterns of
weaving, and the changes of the fibres through time.
All the data collected so far has allowed the researchers to
have the first holistic view of the mine and the miners who
worked there through the periods of its usage. The variety
of the artefacts and the ecofacts found in each stratigraphic
and chronological setting has offered a concise context,
hence revealing the differences between the two ancient
mining phases.
During the Achaemenid phase, the mining area was
accessed from areas further away, indicated by the lack of
settlement in the vicinity of the mine, and the presence of
foreign miners as indicated by the DNA results from some of
the salt mummies. The high number of ceramic vessels and
goods supplied also suggest access from further away,
while the Sasanian phase shows that the mining was
established within the local landscape, and the isotopic
data indicates that the supplies were organised on a
regional basis.
It is also very interesting to take the lack of any
archaeological evidence of any form of a mining settlement
within the vicinity of the mine into account, which indicates
that the mining was seasonal rather than highly organized.
For instance, if we look at the contemporary Greek mining
practice by contrast, this was often a task done by slaves
and was highly organised.
Saltman Mummy No. 4
The individual "Saltmen" have a few secrets of their own,
for instance the first "saltman" that was discovered had the
blood type B+, and 3D imaging of his skull revealed
fractures around his eye and other damage that occurred
before death by a hard blow to the head. His clothing (the
impressive leather boot) and his gold earring, show a
person of some rank; the reason for his presence in the
mine still remains a mystery. Was he murdered and dumped
there, or was he mining salt and fell victim to a cave in?
Saltman No. 5 had tapeworm eggs from the Taenia sp.
genus in his system. These were identified during the study
of his remains. The find indicates the consumption of raw or
undercooked meat, and this is the first case of this parasite
in ancient Iran and the earliest evidence of ancient
intestinal parasites in the area. The best preserved and
probably the most harrowing of the saltmen is Saltman No.
4. A sixteen-year-old miner, caught in the moment of death,
crushed by a cave-in.
For a while it seemed that the four "Saltmen" displayed in
the Rakhtshuikhane Museum in Zanjan were in danger of
becoming damaged by bacterial infection. The display cases
were not sealed properly and were allowing air to enter.
Hence there was some damage to the internal organs of
some the mummies. However, the Iranian press and the
Zanjan Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Dept.
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director later reported Without hesitation, I can now say
that the salt men kept here are in better condition than the
one at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran. Three cases
were made especially for the Saltmen, costing about
$25,000 each. The cases are equipped with devices which
enables experts to monitor conditions inside and keep
them under full control.
The wealth of knowledge these five mummies and the
associated finds have brought and are still bringing in
understanding Ancient Iran is truly invaluable, and I do
hope one day further excavations can be carried out in this
mine, so that further discoveries can come to light.
This content is provided by Past Preservers under a
content sharing agreement. Original article by Haleh
Brooks. Submitted by Karen Barrett-Wilt, published on
06 August 2014 under the following license: Creative
Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike . This license lets
others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long
as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical
terms.
References
Archaeology News from Past Horizons
http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/06/2011/salt-
men-of-ira...
Antiquity Journal
British Experts Started Studies on Zanjan's Salt Men in
Iran
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23240712
http://www.saltmen-iran.com
Multimedia: Botching a Good Story - Archaeology
Magazine Archive
Saltmen
Special Report: Saga of the Persian Princess -
Archaeology Magazine Archive
The Salt Men of Zanjan
http://www.bergbaumuseum.de/index.php/en/research/projects/early-
minin...
Ancient Iranian Salt Mine
Mummies Books
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Scott Peters' Secret Book Of Mummies: 101 Ancient
Egypt Mummy Facts
Scott Peters
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