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Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom centered around the Armenian highlands between Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Lake Sevan. The territory of the ancient kingdom of Urartu extended over the modern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia.Kleiss, Wolfram (2008). "URARTU IN IRAN". Encyclopædia Iranica. Its kings left behind cuneiform inscriptions in the Urartian language, a member of the Hurro-Urartian language family.
Urartu extended from the Euphrates in the west to the region west of Ardabil in Iran, and from Lake Çıldır near Ardahan in Turkey to the region of Rawandiz in Iraqi Kurdistan. The kingdom emerged in the mid-9th century BC and dominated the Armenian Highlands in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Urartu frequently warred with Assyria and became, for a time, the most powerful state in the Near East. Weakened by constant conflict, it was eventually conquered, either by the Iranian peoples Medes in the early 6th century BC or by Cyrus the Great in the middle of the 6th century BC. Archaeologically, it is noted for its large fortresses and sophisticated metalwork.
The name form of Armenia URARTU appears in 2 Assyria from the 9th century BC. Urartologists identify with this name form the land names mat U-RU-A Ţ -RI mentioned by Shalmaneser I I (at the beginning of XIII century) and mat U-RA Ţ -RI mentioned by Adad-nirari II (at the end of X century).
The name forms URARTU and Ararat differ by one vowel (the vowel "a" is missing between the consonants r and t in the URARTU reading). And as the data in the table shows, it is the result of the misunderstanding that the cuneiform scholars who read the name of the country took the readings ar and ar2 of the AR and UB cuneiform signs, respectively, and ignored their readings ara8 and ara2․
On the famous map representing the ancient world (in the 8th century BC) (see figure 1), in the inscription of the Assyrian king Nabopolassar (in 626-604 BC) and in the Behistun inscription of the Achaemenid Iranian king Darius I (in 522-486 BC), the name of Armenia is presented in the form UR-AŠ 2 -TU= URAŠTU. Some authors (Suren Yeremian, Boris Piotrovsky, I. Dyakonoff, U. Horovits and others) distinguish URAŠTU from URARTU, but consider them equivalent names. In order for the writing form URAŠTU to be identical with URARTU=Ararat, it is necessary for the AŠ2 cuneiform sign to have the reading ru/ra.
There is no direct evidence in existing cuneiform dictionaries that the AŠ 2 cuneiform sign has such readings. However, there are a number of side data that confirm the existence of these readings of the AŠ 2 cuneiform. The reading aš 2 of the cuneiform sign AŠ 2 was expressed by the cuneiform AŠ in the cuneiform dictionaries (AŠ 2 = AŠ). And the cuneiform AŠ has 3 ru readings.
Urartu reemerged in Assyrian language inscriptions in the ninth century BC as a powerful northern rival to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Nairi states and tribes became unified kingdom under King Arame of Urartu (c. 860–843 BC), whose capitals, first at Sugunia and then at Arzashkun, were captured by the Assyrians under the Neo-Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III.
Urartologist Paul Zimansky speculated that the Urartians, or at least their ruling family after Arame, may have emigrated northwest into the Lake Van region from their religious capital of Musasir. Zimansky, Paul Urartu and the Urartians, pp. 557 According to Zimansky, the Urartian ruling class were few in number and governed over an ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse population. Zimansky went so far as to suggest that the kings of Urartu might have come from various ethnic backgrounds themselves.Urartian Material Culture As State Assemblage: An Anomaly in the Archaeology of Empire, Paul Zimansky, Page 103 of 103-115
Sarduri I (c. 832–820 BC), the son of Lutipri, established a new dynasty and successfully resisted Assyrian attacks from the south led by Shalmaneser III, consolidated the military power of the state, and moved the capital to Tushpa (modern Van, Turkey, on the shore of Lake Van). His son, Ishpuini (c. 820–800 BC) annexed the neighbouring state of Musasir, which became an important religious centre of the Urartian Kingdom, and introduced the cult of Ḫaldi.
Ispuini was also the first Urartian king to write in the Urartian language (previous kings left records written in Akkadian). He made his son Sarduri II viceroy. After conquering Musasir, Ispuini was in turn attacked by Shamshi-Adad V. His co-regent and subsequent successor, Menua (c. 800–785 BC) also enlarged the kingdom greatly and left inscriptions over a wide area. During Ispuini's and Menua's joint rule, they shifted from referring to their territory as Nairi, instead opting for Bianili.
Urartu reached the highest point of its military might under Menua's son Argishti I (c. 785–760 BC), becoming one of the most powerful kingdoms of ancient Near East. Argishti I added more territories along the Aras and Lake Sevan, and frustrated Shalmaneser IV's campaigns against him. Argishti also founded several new cities, most notably Erebuni Fortress in 782 BC. 6600 prisoners of war from Hittite Empire and Supani were settled in the new city.Adam T. Smith. The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press. 2003. [10] Hovhannisyan, Konstantine. «էրեբունի» (Erebuni). Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia. vol. iv. Yerevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1979, pp. 90-91.
At its height, the Urartu kingdom stretched north beyond the Aras and Lake Sevan, encompassing present-day Armenia and even the southern part of present-day Georgia almost to the shores of the Black Sea; west to the sources of the Euphrates; east to present-day Tabriz, Lake Urmia, and beyond; and south to the sources of the Tigris.
Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria defeated Sarduri II of Urartu in the first year of his reign (745 BC). There the Assyrians found horsemen and horses, tamed as colts for riding, that were unequalled in the south, where they were harnessed to Assyrian war-chariots.D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, (1927, vol II:84), quoted in Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer (2008:17).
Rusa's son Argishti II (714–685 BC) restored Urartu's position against the Cimmerians, however it was no longer a threat to Assyria and peace was made with the new king of Assyria Sennacherib in 705 BC. This, in turn, helped Urartu enter a long period of development and prosperity, which continued through the reign of Argishti's son Rusa II (685–645 BC).
After Rusa II, however, Urartu grew weaker under constant attacks from Cimmerian and Scythian invaders. As a result, it became dependent on Assyria, as evidenced by Rusa II's son Sarduri III (645–635 BC) referring to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as his "father".Journal of Ancient History 1951, No 3. Pages. 243–244Letter of Ashubanipal to Sarduri III. HABL, № 1242.
/ref>Michael Roaf. "Could Rusa son of Erimena have been king of Urartu during Sargon's Eighth Campaign?" BIAINILI-URARTU
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Late during the 7th century BC (during or after Sarduri III's reign), Urartu was invaded by Scythians and their allies—the Medes. In 612 BC, the Median king Cyaxares the Great together with Nabopolassar of Babylon and the Scythians conquered Assyria after it had been irreversibly weakened by civil war. The Medes then took over the Urartian capital of Van in 590 BC, effectively ending the sovereignty of Urartu. However, some historians believe that Urartu survived until the middle of the 6th century BC and was eventually destroyed by Cyrus the Great. Many Urartian ruins of the period show evidence of destruction by fire.
According to Herodotus, the Alarodians ( Alarodioi) were part of the 18th Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and formed a special contingent in the grand army of Xerxes I.Lang, pp. 112, 117 Some scholars have tried to link the Alarodians to Urartians, suggesting that Alarodian was a variation of the name Urartian/ Araratian. According to this theory, the Urartians of the 18th Satrapy were subsequently absorbed into the Armenian nation.Diakonov, I. The Pre-history of the Armenian People. Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984. Modern historians, however, have cast doubt on the Alarodian connection to the Urartians.Zimansky, Paul "Urartian and Urartians." The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia (2011): 557.[13]
In a study published in 2017, the complete mitochondrial genomes of 4 ancient skeletons from Urartu were analyzed alongside other ancient populations found in modern-day Armenia and Artsakh spanning 7,800 years. The study shows that modern-day Armenians are the people who have the least genetic distance from those ancient skeletons. As well, some scholars asserted that the Urartians are the most easily identifiable ancestors of the Armenians.
Since its re-discovery in the 19th century, Urartu, which is commonly believed to have been at least partially Armenian-speaking, (1997). 9781884964985, Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 9781884964985Robert Drews. Militarism and the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe. Routledge. 2017. p. 228. "The vernacular of the Great Kingdom of Biainili was quite certainly Armenian. The Armenian language was obviously the region's vernacular in the fifth century BC, when Persian commanders and Greek writers paired it with Phrygian. That it was brought into the region between the early sixth and the early fifth century BC, and that it immediately obliterated whatever else had been spoken there, can hardly be supposed; ... Because Proto-Armenian speakers seem to have lived not far from Hurrian speakers our conclusion must be that the Armenian language of Mesrop Mashtots was descended from an Indo--European language that had been spoken in southern Caucasia in the Bronze Age."Hrach Martirosyan (2013). "The place of Armenian in the Indo-European language family: the relationship with Greek and Indo-Iranian*" Leiden University. p. 85-86.Petrosyan, Armen. "The Armenian Elements in the Language and Onomastics of Urartu." Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2010. [14] has played a significant role in Armenian nationalism., p. 276.
At its apogee, Urartu stretched from the borders of northern Mesopotamia to the southern Caucasus, including present-day Turkey, Nakhchivan, Armenia and southern Georgia (up to the river Kura). The Taurus mountains also served as a natural barrier against southern threats, particularly from the Assyrians. Archaeological sites within its boundaries include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Haykaberd. Urartu fortresses included Erebuni Fortress (present-day Yerevan), Van Fortress, Argishtihinili, Anzaf, Haykaberd, and Başkale, as well as Teishebaini (Karmir Blur, Red Mound) and others.
In the late 1840s Sir Austen Henry Layard examined and described the Urartian rock-cut tombs of Van Castle, including the Argishti chamber. From the 1870s, local residents began to plunder the Toprakkale ruins, selling its artefacts to European collections. In the 1880s this site underwent a poorly executed excavation organised by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Almost nothing was properly documented.
The first systematic collection of Urartian inscriptions, and thus the beginning of Urartology as a specialized field dates to the 1870s, with the campaign of Sir Archibald Henry Sayce. The German engineer Karl Sester, discoverer of Mount Nemrut, collected more inscriptions in 1890/1. Waldemar Belck visited the area in 1891, discovering the Rusa stele. A further expedition planned for 1893 was prevented by Turkish-Armenian hostilities. Belck together with Lehmann-Haupt visited the area again in 1898/9, excavating Toprakkale. On this expedition, Belck reached the Kelishin stele, but he was attacked by Kurds and barely escaped with his life. Belck and Lehmann-Haupt reached the stele again in a second attempt, but were again prevented from copying the inscription by weather conditions. After another assault on Belck provoked the diplomatic intervention of Wilhelm II, Sultan Abdul Hamid II agreed to pay Belck a sum of 80,000 gold marks in reparation. During World War I, the Lake Van region briefly fell under Russian control. In 1916, the Russian scholars Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr and Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli, excavating at the Van fortress, uncovered a four-faced stele carrying the annals of Sarduri II. In 1939 Boris Piotrovsky excavated Teishebaini, discovering Teishebaini, the city of the god of war, Theispas. Excavations by the American scholars Kirsopp Lake and Silva Lake in 1938-40 were cut short by World War II, and most of their finds and field records were lost when a German submarine torpedoed their ship, the . Their surviving documents were published by Manfred Korfmann in 1977.
A new phase of excavations began after the war. Excavations were at first restricted to Soviet Armenia. The fortress of Karmir Blur, dating from the reign of Rusa II, was excavated by a team headed by Boris Piotrovsky, and for the first time the excavators of a Urartian site published their findings systematically. Beginning in 1956 Charles A. Burney identified and sketch-surveyed many Urartian sites in the Lake Van area and, from 1959, a Turkish expedition under Tahsin Özgüç excavated Altintepe and Arif Erzen.
In the late 1960s, Urartian sites in northwest Iran were excavated. In 1976, an Italian team led by Mirjo Salvini finally reached the Kelishin stele, accompanied by a heavy military escort. The Gulf War then closed these sites to archaeological research. Oktay Belli resumed excavation of Urartian sites on Turkish territory: in 1989 Ayanis, a 7th-century BC fortress built by Rusas II of Urartu, was discovered 35 km north of Van. In spite of excavations, only a third to a half of the 300 known Urartian sites in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia have been examined by archaeologists (Wartke 1993). Without protection, many sites have been plundered by local residents searching for treasure and other saleable antiquities.
On 12 November 2017, it was announced that archaeologists in Turkey had discovered the ruins of a Urartian castle during underwater excavations around Lake Van. The castle dated to the 8th or 7th centuries BC.
| >+ '''Agriculture in Urartu''' | 122px]] | 122px]] | 330px]] | ||
| '''Part of iron pitchfork''', found near [[Lake Van]] and '''Iron plowshare''', found during excavations in [[Rusahinili]] (Toprakkale). | Urartian saddle quern-stone | ||||
According to archaeological data, farming on the territory of Urartu developed from the Neolithic, even in the 3rd millennium BC. In the Urartian age, agriculture was well developed and closely related to Assyrian methods on the selection of cultures and methods of processing.Piotrovskii, Boris, B. Ванское царство (Урарту), Moscow: Vostochnoy Literaturi Publishing, 1959. From cuneiform sources, it is known that in Urartu grew wheat, barley, sesame, millet, and emmer, and cultivated gardens and vineyards. Many regions of the Urartu state required artificial irrigation, which has successfully been organized by the rulers of Urartu in the heyday of the state. In several regions remain ancient irrigation canals, constructed by Urartu, mainly during the Argishti I and Menua period, some of which are still used for irrigation.
The art of Urartu is especially notable for fine lost-wax bronze objects: weapons, figurines, vessels including grand that were used for sacrifices, fittings for furniture, and helmets. There are also remains of ivory and bone carvings, , and of course pottery. In general their style is a somewhat less sophisticated blend of influences from neighbouring cultures. Archaeology has produced relatively few examples of the jewellery in precious metals that the Assyrians boasted of carrying off in great quantities from Musasir in 714 BC.
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Starting with the reign of Ishpuini, the Urartian pantheon was headed by a triad made up of Ḫaldi (the supreme god), Theispas (Teisheba, god of thunder and storms, as well as sometimes war), and Shivini (a solar god). Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Ḫaldi. Some temples to Ḫaldi were part of the royal palace complex, while others were independent structures.
With the expansion of Urartian territory, many of the gods worshipped by conquered peoples were incorporated into the Urartian pantheon as a means of confirming the annexation of territories and promoting political stability. Some main gods and goddesses of the Urartian pantheon include:
Ḫaldi was not a native Urartian god but apparently an obscure Akkadian Empire deity (which explains the location of the main temple of worship for Ḫaldi in Musasir, believed to be near modern Rawandiz). Ḫaldi was not initially worshiped by the Urartians as their chief god. His cult does not appear to have been introduced until the reign of Ishpuini.
Theispas was a version of the Hurrian god, Teshub.[16] ( Encyclopædia Britannica)
According to Diakonoff and Vyacheslav Ivanov, Shivini (likely pronounced Shiwini or Siwini) was likely borrowed from the Hittites.Petrosyan, Armen. "The Eastern Hittites in the South and East of the Armenian Highland?" Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies. IV, 1 (2009). p. 63
On the Gate of Mehr (Mehri-Dur), overlooking modern Van, an inscription lists a total of 79 deities, and what type of sacrificial offerings should be made to each; goats, sheep, cattle, and other animals served as the sacrificial offerings. Urartians did not practice human sacrifice.
A number of the gods mentioned in the Gate of Mehr may be of Armenian origins, including Ara (or Arwaa), The Cambridge Ancient History: III Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries BC. Cambridge University Press. 1971. p. 335. and possibly the goddess Selardi (although there is confusion about this deity's gender and name, some believe it is to be read Melardi).Adontz, Nicholas. The World-view of Ancient Armenians. Hayrmik Motuhty. 1926. No. 12, p. 75.Yervand Grekyan. "Urartian State Mythology"
It has been suggested that the Urartian pantheon could correspond to mountain peaks located within the Armenian Highlands.
Urartians used Assyrian language, script, and form in building inscriptions. This language and script was used until the late ninth century BC when the Urartian language was used.
The Urartian language is an ergative-absolutive, agglutinative language, which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European Language family, but to the Hurro-Urartian language family, which is not known to be related to any other language or language family, despite repeated attempts to find genetic links.
Examples of the Urartian language have survived in many inscriptions, written in the Assyrian cuneiform script, found throughout the area of the Kingdom of Urartu. Although, the bulk of the cuneiform inscriptions within Urartu were written in the Urartian language, a minority of them were also written in Akkadian (the official language of Assyria).
There are also claims of autochthonous Urartian hieroglyphs, but this remains uncertain.Archibald Sayce. "The Kingdom of Van (Urartu)" in Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, vol. 3, p. 172. See also C. F. Lehman-Haupt, Armenien Einst und Jetzt, Berlin, 1931, vol. 2, p. 497. Unlike the cuneiform inscriptions, Urartian hieroglyphs have not been successfully deciphered. As a result, scholars disagree as to what language is used, or whether they even constitute writing at all. The Urartians originally would have used these locally developed hieroglyphs, but later adapted the Assyrian cuneiform script for most purposes. After the 8th century BC, the hieroglyphic script would have been restricted to religious and accounting purposes.
The Kingdom of Urartu, during its dominance, had united disparate tribes, each of which had its own culture and traditions. Thus, when the political structure was destroyed, little remained that could be identified as one unified Urartian culture.Armen Asher The Peoples of Ararat. 2009, p. 290-291. . According to Zimansky:Zimansky, Paul "Xenophon and the Urartian legacy." Dans les pas des Dix-Mille (1995): 264-265 [17]
Ultimately, little is known of what was truly spoken in the geopolitical region until the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century AD. Some scholars believe that the ethnonym "Armina" itself and all other names attested with reference to the rebellions against Darius I in the Satrapy of Armenia (the proper names Araxa, Haldita, and Dādṛšiš, the toponyms Zūzahya, Tigra, and Uyamā, and the district name Autiyāra) are not connected with Armenian linguistic and onomastic material attested later in native Armenian sources, nor are they Iranian, but seem related to Urartian. However, others suggest that some of these names have Armenian or Iranian etymologies. DADARSIS, 2011Dandamaev, M.A. A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire, 1989
A theory, supported by the official historiography of Armenia and experts in Assyrian and Urartian studies such as Igor M. Diakonoff, Giorgi Melikishvili, Mikhail Nikolsky, and Ivan Mestchaninov, suggests that Urartian was solely the formal written language of the state, while its inhabitants, including the royal family, spoke Proto-Armenian. This theory primarily hinges on the fact that the Urartian language used in the cuneiform inscriptions were very repetitive and scant in vocabulary (having as little as 350–400 roots). Furthermore, over 250 years of usage, it shows no development, which is taken to indicate that the language had ceased to be spoken before the time of the inscriptions or was used only for official purposes.
A complementary theory, suggested by Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov in 1984, places the Proto-Indo-European homeland (the location where Indo-European would have emerged from) in the Armenian Highlands, which would entail the presence of proto-Armenians in the area during the entire lifetime of the Urartian state. Although this theory has less support than the more popular Kurgan hypothesis, the Armenian hypothesis would support the theory that the Urartian language was not spoken, but simply written, and postulates that the Armenian language was an in situ development of a 3rd millennium BC Proto-Indo-European language.
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Language
The modern name of the written language used by the kingdom's political elite is Urartian; the language is attested in numerous cuneiform inscriptions throughout Armenia and eastern Turkey. It is unknown what other languages were spoken by the peoples of Urartu under the Kingdom of Van, but there is evidence of linguistic contact between the proto-Armenian language and the Urartian language at an early date (sometime between the 3rd—2nd millennium BC), before the formation of the kingdom.Róna-Tas, András. Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999 p. 76 .
Urartian language
"Urartian" is the modern name for the extinct language used in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Kingdom of Urartu. Its only known relative is Hurrian language; together they form the small Hurro-Urartian language family. Other names used to refer to the language are "Khaldian" ("Ḫaldian"), or "neo-Hurrian". The latter term is considered problematic, however, as it is now thought that Urartian and Hurrian share a common ancestor; formerly, it was thought that Urartian was descended from, or a dialect of, Hurrian. In fact, according to Paul Zimansky:
Proto-Armenian language
The presence of a population who spoke Proto-Armenian in Urartu prior to its demise is subject to speculation, but the existence of Urartian words in the Armenian language and Armenian loanwords into Urartian suggests early contact between the two languages and long periods of Multilingualism. The presence of toponyms, tribal names, and deities of probable Proto-Armenian etymologies which are attested in records left by Urartian kings, such as Uelikuni, Uduri-Etiuni, Abiliani, and Arzashkun, the personal names Arame and Diaṣuni, and the deities Arṣibedini and Aniqu, further supports the presence of an Armenian speaking population in at least the northern regions of Urartu.Hrach Martirosyan (2014). "Origins and Historical Development of the Armenian Language". Leiden University: 9. Retrieved 16 February 2020.[20] The Urartian confederation united the disparate peoples of the highlands, which began a process of intermingling of the peoples and cultures (probably including Armenian tribes) and languages (probably including Proto-Armenian) within the highlands. This intermixing would ultimately culminate in the emergence of the Armenian language as the dominant language within the region.
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