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Urartu was an ancient kingdom in Anatolia, centred in the mountainous region around Lake Van (presently in Turkey), which existed from about 1000 BC, or earlier, until 585 BC, and which, at
its apogee, stretched from northern Mesopotamia through the southern Caucasus.
The name Urartu is actually Assyrian, a dialect of
Akkadian, and was given to the kingdom by its chief rivals to the
south; it may have meant simply "mountain country". The kingdom was named Biainili by its inhabitants. The name
Urartu apparently corresponds to the Ararat of the Old Testament. Indeed, Mount Ararat is located in ancient Urartian territory, approximately 120 km north of its former capital.
History
Assyrian inscriptions from about 1250 BC mention a loose confederation called the
Uruartri or Nairi in North-East Anatolia, in the region around
Lake Van. These towns or tribes became a unified kingdom between 860 BC and 830
BC, under king Aramu or his son Sardur I.
At its height, the Urartu kingdom may have stretched North beyond the Aras River (Greek Araxes) and
Lake Sevan, encompassing present-day Armenia and even the southern part of Georgia
almost to the shores of the Black Sea; west to the sources of the Euphrates; east to present-day Tabriz, Lake Urmin, and beyond; and south to the
sources of the Tigris. Its capital was the ancient city of Tushpa, modern Van, on the shore of Lake Van.
The Uruatu kingdom suffered heavily from Cimmerian raids and from the
campaigns of the Assyrian kings, notably Shalmaneser I, Shalmaneser III and Sargon II. The main temple at Mushashir was sacked and the Urartan king Rusas was defeated by Sargon at Lake Urmin in 714 BC. The kingdom of Urartu was destroyed by the
Scythians from the North, in 585 BC.
The region was eventually occupied by the Armenians.
Uratu archaological sites include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and
Cavustepe. Urartu fortresses are found
Van, Anzaf, Cavustepe and
Baskale.
Economy and politics
The people of Urartu were mostly farmers. They were experts in stone architecture; they may have introduced the blind arch to the Near East, and their houses
may have been the precursor of the Persian apadana layout. They were also experts in
metalworking, and exported metal vessels to Phrygia and Etruria. Excavations have yielded two-storied residential houses with internal wall decorations, windows, and
balconies. Their towns generally had well-developed water supply (often taken from far away) and sewage systems.
Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Khaldi, their major deity. Some
Khaldi temples were part of the royal palace complex, others were independent structures. Other deities included Teisiba, god of the heavens (the Teshub of the Hittites and Khurits), and
Siwini, the sun goddess.
Language
The Urartians spoke an agglutinative language, conventionally called Urartian, which was related to Hurrian in
the Hurro-Urartian family, and was neither Semitic nor Indo-European. Urartian was written in the Assyrian
cuneiform script.
See also
Literature
- Giorgi
Melikishvili, Nairi-Urartu (a monograph in Russian), Tbilisi, 1955.
- Giorgi Melikishvili, About the history of ancient Georgia (a monograph in Russian), Tbilisi, 1959.
- R.-B. Wartke, Urartu, das
Reich am Ararat (in German), Mainz: Zabern, 1993.
- Paul Zimansky, Ecology
and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State, [Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization], Chicago: Oriental Institute,
1985.
External links
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