Salt Mining and Salt Miners at Talkherud–Douzlākh, Northwestern Iran: From Landscape to Resource-Scape

Abstract

The Douzlākh salt deposit (region: Māhneshān, Zanjān Province, Iran) is unique for its pure and crystal rock salt and was an important supplier of culinary (‘table’) salt in Achaemenid, Sassanid and Middle Islamic times. At the same time, the site was of central importance to the economic life of the rural populations in the Talkherud Basin. This article focuses on the question of which strategies were decisive for the exploitation of the salt mountain and how a potential supra-regional interest in the culinary salt was perhaps reciprocally connected with a rural hinterland. This hinterland was recently investigated in greater detail by our ongoing research. Did a resource-scape based on salt develop with specific economic and social strategies and practices around the Douzlākh? And was this development triggered by state or imperial control and demand? These questions are being pursued from a perspective utilising a variety of subjects and methods in archaeology, archaeobiology, archaeometry and geoarchaeology. In addition to a detailed on-site artefact study, several on- and off-site datasets have been collected and analysed within a multidisciplinary framework. This article synthesises the results of a major 12-year project to identify the organisational principles and daily practices within this specific salt-scape. The sensational finds of the Douzlākh salt mummies, along with the generally outstanding preservation of organic ecofacts and artefacts, allow insights into antique lifeworlds that are otherwise hard to come by. The multidisciplinary study of on- and off-site data allows far-reaching insights into interdisciplinary topics, such as the social system, supply and logistics, or the presence of non-local or non-indigenous populations.