(Redirected from Kingdom of Urartu)
'Urartu' (Assyrian ''Urará¹u'',
Urartian ''Biainili'') was an ancient
kingdom of
Armenia[1] located in the mountainous plateau between
Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, and
Caucasus mountains, later known as the
Armenian Highland, and it centered around
Lake Van (present-day eastern
Turkey). The kingdom existed from ca.
860 BC, emerging from Late Bronze Age
Nairi polities, until
585 BC. The name corresponds to the
Biblical '
Ararat'.
Name
The name ''Urartu'' comes from
Assyrian (a dialect of
Akkadian) sources, and was given to the kingdom by its chief rivals to the south. The kingdom's native name was ''Biainili''. Scholars believe that "Urartu" is an Akkadian variation of 'Ararat' of the Old Testament. Indeed,
Mount Ararat is located in ancient Urartian territory, approximately 120
km north of its former capital. In addition to referring to the famous Biblical mountain, "Ararat" was also used in the Old Testament to refer to an ancient kingdom north of
Mesopotamia. Similarly, early Armenian chronicles (5th - 7th cc. AD) state that the original name for Armenia was "country of Ararad."
Some scholars such as
C. F. Lehmann-Haupt (1910) believe that the people of Urartu called themselves ''
Khaldini'' after their god
Khaldi, or that they were related to the
Khaldi of the Black Sea coast . The ''Nairi'', an Iron Age people of the Van area, are sometimes considered related or identical.
Urartu was often called the "Kingdom of Ararat" in many ancient manuscripts and holy writings of different nations. The reason for uncertainty in the names (i.e. Urartu and Ararat) is due to variations in sources. In fact, the written languages at that time employed only
consonants and not
vowels. So the word itself in various ancient sources is written as "RRT", which could be either Ararat, or Urartu, or Uruarti and so on (for more on the name's etymology, see the section
Name below).
Ancient sources have sometimes used "Armenia" and "Urartu" interchangeably to refer to the same country. For example, in the trilingual
Behistun inscription, carved in
520 BC by the order of
Darius the Great of Persia the country is referred to as ''Arminia'' in
Old Persian, translated as ''Harminuia'' in
Elamite and ''Urartu'' in
Babylonian.
Furthermore, the kingdom was known as
Armenia to the Greeks (and, subsequently, to the
Roman Empire) living in western Anatolia, possibly due to the fact that the contacts they had with Urartu, were through the people of the tribe of Armen.
In the late 7th - early 6th centuries BC, the Urartian Kingdom was replaced by the
Kingdom of Armenia, ruled by the Armenian
Orontid dynasty (see the
History section for more on this transition).
Geography
Urartu at its greatest extent 743 BC
Urartu comprised an area of approximately 200,000 square miles, reaching from the river Kura in the north, to the northern foothills of the Taurus in the south; and from the
Euphrates in the west to the
Caspian sea in the east.
[2]
At its
apogee, Urartu stretched from northern
Mesopotamia to the southern
Caucasus, including present-day
Armenia as far as the river Kura. Archaeological sites within its boundaries include
Altintepe,
Toprakkale,
Patnos and
Cavustepe. Urartu fortresses included
Erebuni (present day
Yerevan city),
Van,
Armavir,
Anzaf,
Cavustepe and
BaÅŸkale, as well as
Argishtiqinili,
Teishebaini (Karmir Blour - Red Mount) and others.
Discovery
Friedrich Eduard Schulz travelled to the Van area in 1827 on behalf of the French
Oriental Society, inspired by accounts of queen
Å amiram) by the 5th century Armenian historian
Moses of Chorene. Schulz discovered the ruins of a city and numerous inscriptions, partly in Assyrian, partly in a hitherto unknown language. Schulze also re-discovered the ''Kelišin'', an Assyrian-Urartian bilingual inscription located on the
Kelišin pass on the Iraqi-Iranian border. Schulz was killed by Kurds in 1829 near
Baskale and parts of his notes were lost. In 1828, British Assyriologist Sir
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson attempted to copy the inscription on the stele, but failed because of the ice on the stele's front side. German scholar R. Rosch made a similar attempt a few years later, but he and his party were assaulted and killed.
Sir
Austen Henry Layard in the late
1840s described the rock tombs of
Van-Kelesi and the
Argišti chamber. From the 1870s, local residents began to plunder the
Toprakkale ruins, selling artefacts to European scholars.
The first systematic collection of Urartian inscriptions, and thus the beginning of Urartology as a specialized field
[3] dates to the 1870s, with the campaign of Sir
Archibald Henry Sayce. 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
Carl Ferdinand Friedrich 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, the regional ruler, Sultan
Abdul Hamid II, agreed to pay Belck a sum of 80,000 gold marks in reparation. During
World War I, the area came under Russian control. In 1916, Russian scholars
Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr and
Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli discovered a four-faced stele carrying the annals of
Sarduri II.
Boris Borisovich Piotrovsky in
1939 excavated
Karmir-Blur, discovering
Teišebai, the city of the god of war,
Teišeba. In 1938-40, excavations by American scholars at
Kirsoop and
Silva Lake were cut short by
World War II, and most of their finds were sunk when a German submarine torpedoed their ship. ''
Athenia''. The surviving documents were published by
Manfred Korfmann in 1977. Following the war, excavations were at first restricted to Soviet Armenia. beginning in 1956
Charles Burney excavated in the Van area, and from 1959, Turkish expeditions under
Tahsin Özgüç excavated
Altintepe and
Arif Erzen.
In 1976, an Italian party led by
Mirjo Salvini finally reached the Kelishin stele, accompanied by a massive military escort. The
First Gulf War again closed the area to archaeological research. After the Gulf War, O. Belli resumed excavation on Turkish territory. In 1989, a 7th c. BC fortress built by
Rusas II of Urartu was discovered 35 km north of Van. In spite of resumed excavations, only a third to half of the 300 known Urartian sites in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Armenia have been examined by archeologists (Wartke 1993). Without protection of these sites, local residents would continue to plunder them, taking advantage of the lucrative black market trade.
History
Origins (13th - 9th cc BC)
Urartu under Aramu
Assyrian inscriptions of
Shalmaneser I (ca.
1270 BC) first mention ''Uruartri'' as one of the states of
Nairi -- a loose confederation of small kingdoms and tribal states in
Armenian Highland in the 13th - 11th centuries BC. Uruartri itself was in the region around
Lake Van. The Nairi states were repeatedly subjected to attacks by the Assyrians, especially under Tukulti-Ninurta I (ca. 1240 BC),
Tiglath-Pileser I (ca. 1100 BC), Ashur-bel-kala (ca. 1070 BC),
Adad-nirari II (ca. 900),
Tukulti-Ninurta II (ca. 890), and
Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC).
Urartu re-emerged in Assyrian inscriptions in the 9th c. BC as a powerful northern rival of Assyria. The Nairi states and tribes became a unified kingdom under king
Aramu (ca. 860-843 BC), whose capital at Arzashkun was captured by
Shalmaneser III. Roughly contemporaries of the ''Uruartri'', living just to the west along the southern shore of the
Black Sea, were the
Kaskas known from Hittite sources.
Growth in power (9th c. - 714 BC)
Fragment of a bronze helmet from Argishti I's era. The "tree of life", popular among the ancient societies, is depicted. The helmet was discovered during the excavations of the fortress Of Teyshebaini on Karmir-Blur (Red Hill).
(ca. 832-820 BC), son of Lutipri, moved the capital to the ancient city of
Tushpa (modern
Van, on the shore of
Lake Van),
fortifying it. His son, Ispuini (ca. 820-800 BC) annexed the neighbouring state of Musasir and made his son
Sarduri II viceroy; Ispuini was in turn attacked by
Shamshi-Adad V. His successor
Menua (ca. 800-785 BC) also enlarged the kingdom greatly and left inscriptions over a wide area. Urartu reached highest point of its military might under Menua's son Argishti I (ca. 785-760 BC), becoming one of the most powerful kingdoms of ancient Near East. Argishti I added more territories along the Araxes river and Lake Sevan, and frustrated
Shalmaneser IV's campaigns against him. At some point the Urartuan armies reached all the way to Babylon, taking the city. Argishti also founded several new cities, most notably Erebuni in 782 BC, which grew to be the modern Armenian capital of Yerevan.
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 (e.g.
Qulha) 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.
This became the first known Armenian empire.
Decline and recuperation (714 - 640 BC)
In
714 BC, the Urartu kingdom suffered heavily from
Cimmerian raids and the campaigns of
Sargon II. The main temple at
Mushashir was sacked, and the Urartian king Rusa I was defeated by Sargon at Lake Urmia.
The setback, however, was temporary, as Rusa's son Argishti II (714 - 685 BC) restored Urartu's power, at the same time maintaining peace with Assyria. 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, the Urartu grew weaker and dependent on Assyria, as evidenced by Rusa II's son Sardur III (645-635 BC) referring to the Assyrian king as his "father."
Later Period (640 - 580s BC)
late Urartu under Rusa IV
Much like Urartu's ethnic composition, its later period and transformation to the
Orontid Kingdom of Armenia are debated among scholars.
According to Urartian cuneiforms, Sarduri III was followed by three kings--Erimena (635 - 620 BC), his son Rusa III (620 - 609 BC), and the latter's son Rusa IV (609 - 590 BC). It is also known that in the late 600's BC (during or after Sardur III's reign), Urartu was invaded by
Scythians and their allies--the
Medes. In 612 BC, the Median king Cyaxares conquered Assyria. Many Urartian ruins of the period show evidence of destruction by fire. This would indicate two scenarios--either Media conquered Urartu, bringing about its subsequent demise; or Urartu/Armenia maintained its independence and power, going through a mere dynastic change, as a local Armenian dynasty (later to be called the
Orontids) overthrew the ruling family with the help of the Median army. Ancient sources support the latter version:
★ Xenophon, for example, states that Armenia, ruled by an
Orontid king, was not conquered until the reign of Median king
Astyages (585 - 550 BC) --long after Median invasion of the late 7th century BC.
[4].
★ Similarly, Strabo (1st c. BC - 1st c AD) wrote that "[i]n ancient times Greater Armenia ruled the whole of Asia, after it broke up the empire of the Syrians, but later, in the time of Astyages, it was deprived of that great authority ..."
[5].
★ Furthermore, according to the Old Testament, as late as 593 BC, prophet Jeremiah calls on the kingdom of Ararat and its Median allies to conquer Babylon (Jeremiah 51:27), suggesting that at the time Ararat/Urartu/Armenia was still powerful enough to conquer the Babylonian Empire.
★ Finally, early Armenian chronicles corroborate the Greek and Hebrew sources. In particular, Movses Khorenatsi writes that Armenian prince Paruyr Skayordi helped the Median king Cyaxares conquer Assyria, for which Cyaxares recognized him as the king of Armenia, while Media conquered Armenia only much later--under Astyages.
[6]
Thus, various ancient sources support the conclusion that, following the reign of Sarduri III, the kingdom of Ararat/Urartu went through a dynastic change, as the Armenian Orontid family replaced the house of
Aramu, receiving assistance from the
Medes, and in return helped the
Medes conquer Assyria. This would indicate that the kings Erimena, Rusa III, and Rusa IV were the Urartian names for the earliest Orontid kings of Urartu/Armenia. Under these early Orontids (late 7th - clearly 6th cc), Ararat/Urartu continued to be a powerful independent kingdom, being called Ararat, Urartu, and Armenia by different sources, all referring to the same state.
The end of Urartu was violent, however, as many of its fortresses were burned down. Certainly, by the late sixth century Urartians had been replaced by Armenians.
[7]
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 temples to Khaldi were part of the royal palace complex while others were independent structures. Other deities included
Teisheba, god of the heavens (the
Teshshub of the
Hurrians and
Khurits), and
Shiwini, the sun goddess.
Language
Urartian was an
agglutinative language, which belongs to neither the
Semitic nor the
Indo-European families but to the
Hurro-Urartian family. It survives in many inscriptions found in the area of the Urartu kingdom, written in the
Assyrian
cuneiform script. The Urartians also possessed a native
hieroglyphic script, but in later Urartu this script was restricted to use in
accounting and
religion.
[8]
Overview
Urartian inscriptions use two scripts; locally-developed
hieroglyphs, and
cuneiform script borrowed from
Assyrians and
Hittites.
The Urartian cuneiform inscriptions are further divided into two groups. A minority is written in
Akkadian (the official language of
Assyria). The bulk of the cuneiforms, however, is written in an agglutinative language, conventionally called
Urartian, Khaldian, or neo-Hurrian, which was related to
Hurrian in the
Hurro-Urartian family, and was neither
Semitic nor
Indo-European. It had close linguistic similarities to Northeast
Caucasian languages.
Igor Diakonov even places it in the
Alarodian family, based on linguistic similarities with Northeast Caucasian languages. A more distant connection among Urartian and the modern
Georgian language and
Circassian have been postulated as well.
Currently, the number of known Urartian cuneiform inscriptions is 500. They contain around 350-400 words, most of which are Urartian, while some are loan words from other languages. The greatest number of foreign loan words in Urartuan language is from Armenian--around 70 word-roots.
[9]
The Urartians originally used the locally-developed
hieroglyphs but later adapted the
Assyrian
cuneiform script for most purposes. After the
8th century BC, the hieroglyphic script was restricted to religious and accounting purposes. Currently, samples of Urartian written language have survived in many inscriptions found in the area of Urartu kingdom.
Unlike cuneiform inscriptions, the Urartuan hieroglyphic texts have not been successfully deciphered. As a result, scholars disagree as to what language is used in the texts. In mid-1990s, Armenian scientist Artak Movsisyan published a partial attempted deciphering of Urartian hieroglyphs, suggesting that they were written in an early form of Armenian.
[10]
Debate over spoken language
The linguistic and, therefore, ethnic make-up of Urartu's population has been subject to debate among scholars.
The majority view states that it was spoken by the royal elite, which ruled over a multi-ethnic, in late Urartian times largely Armenian-speaking population.
[11] Under this theory, the Armenian-speaking population were the descendants of the
proto-Armenians who migrated to the Armenian Highland in ca. the 7th century BC, mixing with the local Hurrian-speaking population (i.e. the "Phrygian theory," first suggested by Herodotus).
A minority view, advocated primarily by the official historiography of Armenia, suggests that Urartian was solely the formal written language of the state, while its inhabitants, including the royal family, spoke Armenian. The theory primarily hinges on the language the Urartian cuneiform inscriptions being 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.
[12] This view is compatible with the "
Armenian hypothesis" suggested by V. Ivanov and T. Gamkrelidze, postulating the Armenian language as an ''in situ'' development of a 3rd millennium BC
Proto-Indo-European language[13]
Ethnic Composition
On linguistic grounds (see
Hurro-Urartian), the majority of scholars believe that the Urartians were related to the earlier
Hurrians.
[14] A minority view states that Urartu was populated and ruled by Armenians (see below for more on the linguistic debate).
[15]
The Urartians were succeeded in the area in the 6th century BC by the Armenians,
[16], who in the view of the majority of scholars had been present in
Anatolia from around
1200 BC, and over the following centuries spread east to the
Armenian Highland [17] This scenario could place Armenians in their traditional homeland of eastern Asia Minor anywhere from around 1200 BC to around
700 BC (pushed eastward from
Phrygia by the invasions of the
Cimmerians in
696 BC).
[18] A competing view suggested by
Thomas Gamkrelidze and
Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in
1984 places the
Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Armenian Highland, see
Armenian hypothesis, which would entail the presence of (pre-)
Proto-Armenians in the area during the entire lifetime of the Urartian state.
After the disappearance of Urartu as a political entity, the Armenians dominated the highlands, absorbing portions of the previous Urartian culture in the process.
[19]
Urartu and Armenian ethnogenesis
Although weakened by incursions, the southeastern parts where Hays lived remained intact. The Hay took over the rule of that part of Urartu’s territory, remained a viable political entity and regained strength under their own name of "the land of Hays" –
Hayq,
Hayastan. The western territory remained under the control of the Armens, and was known as
Armenia, the name by which it came to be known to the rest of the world. The ancient Armenian civilization was a direct continuation of the Urartian civilization.
[20] Thus the relationship between the Armenians and the Hurro-Urartians is similar to that of the
Romans with the
Etruscans, or that of the
Greeks with the
Minoans and other
Pelasgians [20]. The language and mythology of Urartu had important influence over the languages and cultures of
Armenia and
Georgia. Modern Armenians claim descent from the Urartians
[15].
The
Columbia Encyclopedia states:
See also
★
Armenia
★
Languages of the Caucasus
★
Hurro-Urartian languages
★
Urartian language
★
List of Kings of Urartu
References
Footnotes
1. "Urartu." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia University Press.
2. The Kingdom of Armenia By Mack Chahin - Page 105
3. Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, v. 12, Yerevan 1987
4. Xenophon, "Cyropedia," III.7
5. Strabo, "Geography," 11.3.5;
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0198&loc=11.13.1
6. Movses Khorenatsi, "History of Armenia"
7. A History of the Ancient Near East, Ca. 3000-323 BC - Page 205 by Marc Van de Mieroop
8. A. Sayce, The Kingdom of Van (Urartu), Cambridge Ancient History, vol. II, p. 172 See also C. F. Lehman-Haupt, Armenien Einst und Jetzt, Berlin, 1931, vol. II, p. 497
9. Encyclopedia Americana, v. 2, USA 1980, pgs. 539, 541; Hovick Nersessian, "Highlands of Armenia," Los Angeles, 2000. 'Mr. Nersessian is in the New York Academy of Sciences.'
10. A. Movsisyan, "Hieroglyphics of the Kingdom of Van," Yerevan, 1998
11. Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: an introduction to early Hungarian history - Page 76 by András Róna-Tas
12. Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, v. 12, Yerevan 1987, pp. 274-282
13. C. Walker, "Armenia--Survival of a Nation," London, 1990.
14. Boris B. Piotrovsky, The Ancient Civilization of Urartu, Cowles Book Co., Inc., New York, NY, 1969; Diakonov I.M., Starostin S.A. Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Languages. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, R. Kitzinger, München, 1986; Ancient Hurrians
15. Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, v. 12, Yerevan 1986
16. Urartu on Britannica
17. http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000002/st21.shtml I.M. Dyakonov, V.D. Neronova, I.S. Sventsitskaya, "History of the Ancient World," v. 2, Moscow 1983
18. Herodotus - ''The Histories'', Book 7, Chapter 73; The Armenians - by Elizabeth Redgate, A. E. (Anne Elizabeth)
19. Star Spring Urartu
20. http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000002/st03.shtml I.M. Dyakonov, V.D. Neronova, I.S. Sventsitskaya, "History of the Ancient World," v. 2, Moscow 1983
21. http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000002/st03.shtml I.M. Dyakonov, V.D. Neronova, I.S. Sventsitskaya, "History of the Ancient World," v. 2, Moscow 1983
22. Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, v. 12, Yerevan 1986
Literature
★ M. Chahin, ''The Kingdom of Armenia: A History'', Routledge, London, 2001.
★ C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, ''Armenien - Einst und Jetzt'', Berlin 1910.
★
Ashkharbek Kalantar, ''Materials on Armenian and Urartian History'' (with a contribution by Mirjo Salvini), Civilisations du Proche-Orient: Series 4 - Hors Série, Neuchâtel, Paris, 2004;ISBN 2-940032-14-9;ISBN13 978-2-940032-14-3
[1]
★ Giorgi Melikishvili, ''Nairi-Urartu'' (a monograph in Russian), Tbilisi, 1955.
★ Giorgi Melikishvili, ''About the history of ancient Georgia'' (a monograph in Russian), Tbilisi, 1959.
★
Boris B. Piotrovsky, ''The Ancient Civilization of Urartu'' (translated from Russian by James Hogarth), New York:Cowles Book Company, 1969.
★ M. Salvini, ''Geschichte und Kultur der Urartäer'', Darmstadt 1995.
★ R.-B. Wartke, ''Urartu - Das Reich am Ararat'' In: Kulturgeschichte der Antiken Welt, Bd. 59, Mainz 1993.
★ P.E. Zimansky, ''Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State'', [Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization], Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1985.
★ P.E. Zimansky, ''Ancient Ararat. A Handbook of Urartian Studies'', New York 1998.
External links
★
Historical Maps of Urartu by WikiMedia Commons
★
An Urartian Ozymandias - article by Paul Zimansky, ''Biblical Archaeologist''
★
Nairi/Urartu (A very detailed site)
★
Urartu Civilization
★
Urartu (Greek Ararat)
★
Capital and Periphery in the Kingdom of Urartu, Yehuda Dagan, Israel Antiquities Authority
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