Zanjan Saltmen Museum

Saltmen (Mardan-e Namaki) is a name which has been given to six mummified men that discovered in Chehrabad salt mine in the winter of 1993 in Zanjan Province. Zanjan Saltmen museum has some archeological pieces from places in the Zanjan province. It is situated in a nice Qajar-sytle mansion on the main square of Zanjan. Most of them accidentally killed by the collapse of galleries in which they were working. This monument was registered in Iran's National Heritage on March 15, 1997.

Description

These men were naturally mummified because they were stuck in a salt mine and were discovered accidentally during an excavation operation in one of the mines of Chehr'aabaad in Mahanshan of Zanjan and emerged from the depth of a mine. Some of them have been severely hurt as a result of mine working by bulldozer. In 2008, mine operation stopped and the body of the sixth saltman was left untouched in the mine due to lack of necessary equipment to maintain it.

When the bodies found in the Chehrabad Salt Mine, Zanjan Saltmen museum was created in 2007; So they transfered them and the first museum of archeology of Zanjan opened in Zolfaghari Mansion in 2009. Zalfaghari Mansion is a historical monument located in an old neighborhood called "Dalan-e Alti" in the northern side of Sabze Meydan and Jame Mosque in Zanjan. Among discovered men, three of them belonged to Achaemenid period (6th to 4th century BC) and two of them to late periods of Sassanid dynasty (4th to 6th century AD). Among them, there are the bodies of a woman and a teenage boy too.

About Saltmen

In the winter of 1993, six mummified men were discovered in sali mine of Zanjan that some of them are severely damaged but others are complete and intact. The first saltmen is known as "a man wearing boots" beacause one of his legs wore a boot. Archaeologists believe that this salt man is likely to be a member of the aristocracy and the princes. Because there were many jewels on his clothes. The second one was a middle-aged man. This man has died due to the fall of the roof and the walls of the tunnel. The other one was discovered as fragmented and disintegrated. The body of fourth salt man is the most complete and healthy body among the bodies of salt men. This mummy body belongs to the young boy of about 16 years old. The mummy of fifth man, except the head, other parts of the body are under the great stones and demolished and according to researchers, the skull of sixth body is related to Sassanid Period.