III. URARTIANS

With the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the face of the eastward invasions of Aegean peoples, generally known as the 'Peoples of the Sea', in about 1200 BC, and with the break-up of its dominions into small independent principalities of more or less Hittite character, there arose in the east of Anatolia a new power—Urartu. With its center around Van Golu (Lake Van), the heartland of this state comprised that area of mountains and high plateau bordered by three other lakes—Cildir, Gokce (Sevan) and Urmia—but during its peak extended far beyond, into Transcaucasia (Kafkasotesi) in the north, into north-western Iran in the east, up to the Malatya region in the west and down as far as Sanliurfa (Urfa) in the south. And for 300 years, from the 9th to the 6C BC, Urartu was a formidable regional power, rivaling Assyria in Mesopotamia and competing constantly with her Assyrian foe for complete hegemony over eastern and south-eastern Anatolia.

Yet for all this, the name of Urartu rapidly fell into desuetude on its decline—though it appears in the Old Testament as Ararat—as the sources of antiquity and the Middle Ages attributed the culture of the Van area to Assyrian civilization. It was not until the 19C AD that this even began to be questioned, and the latter half of the 20C that the Urartian state was finally recognized as a civilization in its own right, with excavation and research in the three countries comprising the region covered by the Urartians—the Soviet Union, Turkey and Iran.

While the early existence of the confederation of small states from which the larger unit known as Urartu was to develop in the 9C BC is poorly documented, the most recent archaeological research has proved that there was, from the third millennium BC, a strong cultural union in this wide geographical area between Caucasia and northern Syria, the Malatya region and Lake Urmia. Moreover, its peoples were of Human stock, sharing a language structure with morphology, phonology, syntax and vocabulary that can be classified as Asiatic due to its agglutinative character. Indeed, the Urartian language, in possessing this capacity for creating new words by adding suffixes to a given root is similar to the branch of languages known as Ural-Altaic—of which the closest, geographically, today is Turkish, spoken in its various dialects from western Anatolia and parts of eastern Europe across the mountains and plateau of eastern Anatolia, Caucasia and Soviet Central Asia as far as Chinese Turkistan (Xinjiang).

Archaeological excavations have revealed relations with, among other neighboring regions, the Mitanni state in SE Anatolia during the 15th and 14C BC and, on their fall to the Hittites, directly with the Hittite Empire itself—relations which evidently played an important role in the cultural and economic development of the high plateau societies of eastern Anatolia. With the collapse of the Hittite Empire about 1200 BC these societies formed a loose defensive confedera tion against the northward expansion of Assyria. The first documen tary information on them is found in an inscription of the Assyrian king Salmanassar I (1272-1243 BC), referring to Uruatri as one of the countries with which Assyria had hostile relations and claiming to have conquered eight kingdoms bearing the collective name of Uruatri. Subsequent Assyrian records refer to the high plateau lands as the land of the Nairi, and indeed the Urartians themselves always used the term Nairi or Biaini (Viaini) to refer to their lands and peoples (the modern name Van is thought to have derived from the latter). But from the reign of the Assyrian king Asurnasirpal II (883— 859 BC), the name Urartu comes to be used synonymously with Nairi in the Assyrian annals which, after all, form the bulk of the documen tary evidence concerning Urartu and the basis of our knowledge.

One of the most important and informative early Assyrian records is located at a temple on Balawat Hill, near Nineveh. The lintels of its huge bronze gates (the Balawat Gates) are covered with reliefs depicting the victory of Salmanassar III (858-824 BC) over the Urartians at a time when they were beginning to merge, in the face of the number and ferocity of the Assyrian attacks, into a unified state.

The name of Aramu (or Arame, 850-840 BC) emerges as the first leader of the united Urartian peoples, but the real founder of the state of Urartu is generally held to be Sarduri (or Seduri) I (840-830 BC), who built Tushpa (near Lake Van) as the Urartian capital, with the massive fortress of Van as its citadel. The first written sources of Urartu itself belong to Sarduri I whose inscriptions, in the Assyrian language and script, detail the achievements of his reign and describe himself in Assyrian terms as the 'King of the Nairi lands'. Thus the extent of Assyrian cultural influence over the early state can be guessed at. The oldest inscriptions in the Urartian language date from 824 BC and belong to Sarduri I's son and successor, Ishpuini (830-810 BC). Yet, as the primitive hieroglyphic Urartian script appears to have become by this time insufficient for a rapidly developing state, he adopted a modified version of Assyrian cuneiform for state purposes, while the native Urartian hieroglyphs continued to be used for religious and commercial purposes.

It was under Ishpuini and his son (and joint ruler) Menua (810-786 BC) that Urartian expansion really began, in conjunction with a massive construction program, a dual policy continued by succes sive Urartian kings who matched their military successes with the building of roads, fortresses, towns (located centrally and in frontier areas), canals and aqueducts, temples and shrines, vast granaries, cisterns and wine cellars, together with monumental inscriptions to record for their populace and for posterity the great achievements of their reigns. Menua is credited with being the first monarch in Western Asia to adopt a policy of conquest through building sys tematically planned lines of fortresses, a strategy later to be revived by the Romans. Indeed, major construction projects were carried out by Urartian rulers right up to the collapse and destruction of the state at the hands of invading Cimmerians and Scythians, autochthonous peoples moving westward from Central Asia and sweeping all before them.

The expansionist policies, in every direction, of Ishpuini and Menua were continued by Argishti I (786-764 BC), one of whose inscriptions (at Van Castle) is the largest Urartian inscription found to date. It describes in great geographical detail his numerous con quests and establishment of strong military bases as springboards for future campaigns, including his efforts to reach the Mediterranean and take over control of the major Assyrian trade routes.

The reigns of Argishti I and Sarduri II (764-735 BC) formed the zenith of Urartian dominion in extent, prestige and power, and no less in its architectural, cultural and artistic activities—activities which retained their high standard despite Sarduri II's ignominious defeat by the Assyrian Tiglatpileser (Tiglath-Pileser) III (744-727 BC) in 742 BC, which marked the beginning of a gradual but by no means steady decline from the Urartian position as one of the two dominant regional powers of the Bronze Age Near East.

One characteristic act of Urartian monarchs was the building of new settlements bearing their own names or names of deities; and Sarduri II's foundation of Sardurihinili (Cavustepe), 24km SE of Van, in the Gurpinar plain, is one of the most striking examples of the high level of development achieved in Urartian architecture. The lower of the two fortresses contained a depot, various workshops and other rooms, a shrine and a palace complex, while the upper fortress seems to have been used only for religious purposes, containing a shrine dedicated to the god Haldi. Along the top of the massive walls were a number of two-storied buildings featuring at least five blind win dows in basalt. In the huge depots over a hundred wine containers— some holding over a thousand liters of wine—remain half buried. Three cisterns supplied the magnificent three-storied palace, so the castle could evidently withstand a siege. But perhaps most striking is the palace lavatory with its septic tank and sewage canal passing beyond the outer walls, indicating the level of Urartian advancement in comparison with other contemporary cultures. Of particular histor ical interest are the layers of destruction by fire and the thousands of Scythian-style arrow-heads in front of the fortress walls and inside the fortifications, vividly attesting the siege and destruction of the fortress by the Scythians at the end of the 7C BC- (Probably the most important later Urartian settlement from the point of view of its rich archaeological revelations is Rusa II's (685-645 BC) city of Teishebaini (Karmir Blur near Erevan in the Soviet Union].)

It was Menua who seems to have been the most prolific builder, with over 120 inscriptions describing his various achievements and the bulk of the Urartian roads to his credit. Indeed, the road system was extremely advanced, facilitating economic development and fostering cultural relations. It seems to have been a continuation of earlier Human policy, utilizing to best advantage the natural passes and routes to the difficult mountainous terrain of the eastern Anat olian high plateau land with its extremes of climate, and underpin ning the conscious development and expansionist policies of the Urartian kings—as evinced by the spread of the road network from the heart of the kingdom, around Lake Van. Indeed, the two major caravan highways across Asia that have been used by mankind through the centuries pass through the eastern Anatolian high plateau near Van, and their utilization by the Urartians is known from the discovery of carbonized remains of silk at Toprakkale—the second capital of the Urartians founded near Tushpa by Rusa II (735-714 BC)—which can only have come from China.

Among the most notable constructions of Menua’s reign, mention should be made of the Aznavurtepe castle and shrine to the NE of Lake Van, which is the only known example in Urartian architecture of outer walls with watch-towers. A large reservoir was constructed at the foot of the hill to meet the water needs of the inhabitants. The shrine, thought to be the oldest found to date, was built according to the standard Urartian design of a square-shaped single room resting on a basalt foundation, with limestone walls covered with frescoes and low cuneiform inscriptions. Despite plunderings over the course of time, a number of valuable bronze lion statues and gold and silver artifacts were discovered inside. Also attributed tentatively to Menua is a palace at Giriktepe (or Degirmentepe), near Aznavur tepe. Here, excavation has so far revealed a two-storied building with two kitchens, a throne-room and various other rooms. But its most interesting architectural feature is that of mud-brick, instead of the usual timber, columns resting on stone foundations; these sur vived the destruction of the palace by fire at the end of the 8C BC, by Cimmerian or Scythian invaders, as the mud-brick baked hard. In the center of the palace is a beautifully constructed stone well, 12m deep, at the bottom of which were found tools such as axes and bronze artifacts probably thrown down there for safety during the attack. And even more fascinating is the discovery of 37 skeletons, fossilized by fire, in one room. Mostly women, they must have been put in here for shelter during the attack, along with a quant ity of elaborate gold and silver jewellery found buried in the same room.

Menua was also responsible for the construction of a canal extend ing over 51km from the Gurpinar plain to the Van plain, over aqueducts where the terrain necessitated, complete with 14 inscrip tions along its length. This canal, known today as the Samram Canal, was a remarkable feat of engineering and is still in use. The construction of lesser canals was part of a continuing Urartian policy of extending animal husbandry and agriculture by means of an irrigation network.

As will have become quite apparent by now, apart from archae ological evidence, the vast bulk of our information about the Urartians comes from two main sources—the monumental rock and stone inscriptions of the Urartian monarchs and, particularly for the earlier period before these were initiated, the annals of the Assyrian kings. Compared with the wealth of Hittite clay tablets that have come to light, those of the Urartians to date number only 15 and thus cannot be said to constitute a major documentary source! The Assyrian royal archives stored at Nineveh and Kalah (Nimrud) include many intel ligence reports covering the period from the late 8C BC when, as far as we can ascertain, the Urartian royal annals are incomplete, if not entirely missing, so that isolated inscriptions comprise our only indigenous source to date. The Assyrian reports are most detailed and informative, and reveal the extent and reliability of their espionage system; but problems in dating and sequence are mani fold as many of the reports are undated or damaged.

The Urartian royal inscriptions, however, to be found on cliff faces and on the walls of palaces, fortresses, temples, shrines and tombs, provide a valuable and often very detailed source of information chiefly relating to military campaigns and construction work, although much incidental knowledge may also be gleaned from them. For example, the fact that most of the inscriptions begin by addressing a god indicates the place held by religion in Urartian society, while the deity whose name appears most frequently—the god Haldi—may be taken as the most important. Dates and names of rulers may be established fairly accurately by a comparison of Urartian with Assyrian annals, as well as isolated comments which throw light on aspects of administrative organization.

Concerning the Urartian administration, we can see a clear development from the early confederation of—at the risk of anachro nism—'feudal' principalities, whose rulers seem to have been relativ ely free in internal affairs while paying some kind of central tax or tribute to a fully-centralized monarchal state with control over provincial as well as central units of administration. Once again, we must look to Menua as the first Urartian monarch to take steps in the realization of the religious and economic continuity, consistency and inviolability of the state. It was evidently in pursuance of this aim that Menua set about the dam-building and irrigation works that extended state authority over the fertile plateau; and these, alongside his massive program of road construction, served to exert central control over the 'feudal' lords who gradually subsumed themselves under the name of their rulers. It is noteworthy that Menua's innovation of appointing governors over subject territ ories—a vital factor in the centralization of the kingdom—was not only continued by his successors but adopted by the Assyrian king Tiglatpileser III in place of the traditional Assyrian system of inher ited governorships.

Royal succession passed from father to son. Ishpuini established a form of joint rule with his son and successor, Menua, which in terms of military and building achievements seems to have been quite workable. But Menua ousted his own eldest son from sharing his throne and abolished the system of dual rulership together with the passage of succession specifically to the eldest son.

In the absence of detailed legal and economic documentation, the role and duties of provincial governors are not clear. We infer from the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions of Sargon II (722-705 BC) that Urartian nobility and royalty were quite distinct from one another and that ownership of land was quite separate from administrative responsibility for the same land. Sargon II refers to Rusa Is brothers as owning seven cities which also have appointed provincial gover nors over them.

A central administration was essential for the development of an efficient and extensive irrigation network, in its turn vital for a well-founded agricultural system, which the Urartians developed to exploit the rich pasture lands of the eastern Anatolian high plateau for animal husbandry. This emphasis on agriculture, with the estab lishment of agricultural centers in the heart of the kingdom as well as in the provinces, combined with rapid development in metallurgy, required human labor—a requirement that was met by the enforced settlement of huge numbers of captives brought back from frequent and regular campaigns for the purpose of populating and working new land. The numbers involved were colossal; Argishti I, for example was responsible for the resettlement on the land of nearly 300.000 people. But these people were not like slaves who had no rights and were employed in heavy manual labor such as massive construction projects. These resettled people had certain obligations, including military service, to the state but considerable freedom in their everyday lives. Nor were they harshly treated: each family was allotted a standard dwelling with doors that were closed and locked from the inside and, judging from the animal bones found in their kitchens, they were free not merely to rear their own stock but also to hunt wild animals.

But apart from such isolated items of information as these, and in the absence of sufficient written documents, it is premature to speculate very far on the contractual relations between rulers and ruled. Yet we can be sure of the existence of a flourishing trade, based on the twin pillars of a sound agriculture, comprising crops and livestock, and a booming industrial development deriving from the rich supply of metals in Urartian territories: gold, silver, copper and iron. At Metsamor, near the Aras river, were huge smelting sites for bronze and iron; and glass was manufactured here where the main ingredients, including zinc and manganese, were all available. Iron and soft steel were also imported from Colchis, and metal artifacts exported all over the Near East and beyond; for example, the famous bronze cauldrons found throughout the Mediterranean as far as Etruria in Italy, have been attributed to Urartu.

Similarly, our knowledge of the religious life and beliefs of the Urartian people is restricted by reliance on written sources—namely inscriptions—that concentrate on military campaigns and con struction programs, albeit including religious constructions, while ignoring the social aspects. Thus we derive the bulk of our scanty knowledge from rock and stone reliefs, paintings and architecture. By far the most important source for Urartian state religion and its close links with state organization is the rock relief and inscription of Meher Kapi, 5km NE of Van Castle, built in the reign of Ishpuini and Menua at the end of the 9C BC and dedicated to Haldi. The cuneiform has twice been renewed—an indication of its importance to contemporaries—and the entire pantheon of 79 deities is depicted, standing on their respective sacred beasts with their own sacrificial animals according to their level in the hierarchy. The number and breed of animal to be sacrificed to each is clearly indicated, but not the occasion or frequency of sacrifice. The huge totals give us some indication of the extent and importance of animal husbandry and stock-breeding in the kingdom and the evident link between these and the requirement to dedicate and sacrifice animals to the gods, quite apart from the desire to propitiate the gods in the hope of averting natural calamity or inducing success in enterprise. The essential place of animals in the society is also evident from the Urartians' twice-yearly campaigns, coinciding with the breeding season, which doubled up as raids into regions such as Transcaucasia to obtain the maximum number of animals possible. In view of all this, it is unlikely that the Urartians would have jeopardized the basis of their prosperity and security by slaughtering too frequently the large numbers of beasts specified in the Meher Kapi inscription, as some scholars have argued.

We can be certain that the Urartian religion was closely linked with those of Anatolia (Human and Hittite), Mesopotamia (Assyrian and Babylonian) and Iran. The Human influence is particularly notice¬able in the names of deities. For example, the chief god, Haldi, known to be of Human origin, was worshipped in all the states of the early Urartian confederation of the 13th to the 11C BC, and as the most prominent deity was adopted in the 9C as the head of the official pantheon. The second god in the hierarchy, Teisheba, was the God of the Storm and Thunder, identifiable as the Human Storm-God, Teshup (Hittite name, Taru); his wife, Huba, matches the Hurrian Hepat. The third god, Shivini, the Sun-God, was the equiv alent of the Hurrian Sun-God, Shimigi.

The Urartian state religion was evidently created in what seems to have been a deliberate policy of 'Urartification’ which took place as an integral part of the centralization of the provinces. And the incorporation into the official pantheon of local deities, as had been done by the Hittites before them, was probably a policy designed by the Urartian kings to avoid alienating their subject populations. This policy is also apparent in connection with the lingering of a strong animist tendency, especially in the provinces—a tendency shorn. however, of its totemistic and dangerously separatist elements by the inclusion of animist deities like Ebani, the Earth God, and Suinin, the Water- and Sea-God, in the state pantheon without their totems. The consequent abandonment of totems by the subject peoples could only serve to strengthen the centralizing policy of ‘Urartification’.

Shrines were important for economic as well as for religions reasons. Economically, they disposed of considerable wealth in that they owned large flocks and herds as well as tracts of land and vineyards, all dedicated to the gods. Religiously, they were the scenes of rituals and ceremonies, including the dedication and the sacrifice of animals. The open-air shrine in the center of Van Castle is of particular interest for the continuity of its tradition of sanctity right up to the present day. During the Ottoman (Osmanli) period, an Islamic shrine (turbe) was constructed beneath the stone platform on which the Urartian rituals were performed. Even now, sacrifices are made on Thursdays—the meat subsequently dispersed as charity amongst the poor—by those who believe a wish has been fulfilled. And young men, unlucky in love, believe that by sliding through the ancient drainage-hole of the sacrificial platform, their wishes will be granted and wives found. Thus traditional folkways live on, despite changes in interpretation.

The banishment of totems by the Urartian state religion was not matched by the complete eradication of popular cults with their primitive baked-clay idols, especially in the more outlying areas; nor by a corresponding disappearance of animist beliefs. Indeed, spring waters, caves, mountains, trees and rocks, considered holy by the Urartian people, are venerated to this day in parts of Anatolia and Central Asia. Curious stone effigies of fish found in spring pools in Kars and Transcaucasia attest to the sanctity of such springs; caves were held to be the gateways to the underworld and had been holy from prehistoric times, as had certain rocks; and rocks generally symbolized strength and protection—the Urartians believed their rock inscriptions would last forever (as indeed they look set to do!). False stone doors carved into walls and rocks, an architectural form and religious belief peculiar—in Anatolia—to the Urartians, were venerated as holy, and as doors by which the gods would enter the world. An example is Meher Kapi, known locally as Kor Kapi (Blind Door) or Yalanci Kapi (False Door). Some locals still believe that these doors open on particular days of the year.

The significance, of trees and the symbolism of the Tree of Life, depicted on virtually all Urartian artifacts, lies in the dynamism of trees through seasonal renewal. The involvement of the Tree of Life in a variety of ceremonies indicates more than a merely ornamental function; indeed the religious and particularly protective function is evinced by its appearance on all kinds of Urartian weaponry (including their elaborately decorated bronze belts), dedicated in secret cult ceremonies invoking the Tree of Life before setting out on campaign. And elsewhere in Anatolia at about this time depictions of the Tree of Life, carved in stone, were also being made—flanked by bulls on a monumental wall ('Herald s Wall') at Kargamis (Carchemish) in the 9C BC, and flanked by deities on both sides of the entrance to the Palace at Sakcagozu in the late 8th-early 7C BC. The universality of the Tree of Life in Near Eastern societies, dating from the Sumerian of c 3000 BC—and most likely brought by them from their Central Asian homeland—suggests its symbolizing of immortality in the face of man's fear of death and spiritual uncertainty.

As for the after-life, the Urartians clearly believed in it. They buried their dead in tombs shaped like rooms or even houses, with their possessions beside them. Both cremation and inhumation were widely practiced among all strata of society, but with only archae ological evidence to guide us we can but speculate as to Urartian views on death and burial. Tombs are similar in character to shrines, possibly the most important, architecturally, being the sumptuous royal tombs at Van Castle with their elaborate design and valuable artifacts inside. Ordinary graves were much simpler and poorer; so we can surmise that social differentiation in life continued in death.

In art, as in religious practice, a clear division between 'palace' art and folk art is readily discernible. Palace art was, certainly during the earlier period, not dissimilar to that of the Assyrian court and, indeed, was long thought to be a branch of Assyrian art. This resemblance is understandable given the extent of Assyrian political and cultural influence in the 9C BC and the early Urartian rulers' aspirations to the Assyrian ideal—for example their adoption of cuneiform script and the diplomatic Akkadian language, their use of clay tablets and of Assyrian ideograms for the names of the same deities, their adoption of Assyrian royal titles and terms for military ordnance, and their painting of frescoes with Assyrian animal and flower motifs. Yet, from the point of view of style, form and tradition—for example, the motifs of the lion, the bull, the Tree of Life and the winged sun-disc—the origins of Urartian palace art go back beyond the Assyrian to the older Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations and reveal a multiplicity of influences from preceding and neighboring cultures, including Hurrian and Hittite. And it is impossible to disentangle strands of individual societies from the general web of interrelated cultures of the whole broad region of the ancient Near East, for the continuity and spread of art, especially that expressed in animal motifs, should not be sought in the aesthetic nature of their work but in its being rooted in the commonality of people's belief. However, this is not to deny Urartian (or any) artistic endeavor its own character and style, developed through drawing on a wide cultural heritage.

Perhaps the most strikingly original Urartian artistic representa tions were their fantastic creatures composed of parts of different animals, such as bull- or goat-headed birds with the legs of lions, bird-headed men with fish bodies, bird-women, lion-headed bulls and lion-griffons. Can these be interpreted as forming part of the state policy of extending and justifying its sovereignty over its peoples, emphasizing simultaneously the power and protective role of the state, both in a political and a religious sense, through such symbolism of uniqueness? My answer would be yes.

The well-known huge mixing-bowls and cauldrons of beaten bronze, produced from the 8C BC, bore four finely-cast handles— initially in the form of birds with human heads and extended wings, with evidently a magical symbolism. With the passage of time, the handles came to be shaped as griffons' or lions' heads on bird-figures, and eventually as bulls' heads. In Lycia (SW Anatolia), bird-figures such as these were associated with a cult of the dead. We can speculate on similar Urartian associations and their possible connec tion with an earlier Hittite cult of Ereshkigal, the Sun-Goddess of the Underworld, and later sacrificial rites in Homeric Greek culture.

The monumental palace art of rock reliefs, frescoes, seals and, especially, bronze artifacts share the characteristic of a wholly stylized and uniform representation of the deities, maintaining cons tancy of proportion regardless of the nature or size of the material; even the miniature figures depicted on thrones, weapons, the famous bronze belts of the warriors, seals, and necklaces reveal the same attention to detail. It is in such aspects that the remarkable quality of Urartian monumental art lies.

And it is such aspects that are entirely absent from the folk art of the Urartians—an art that seems to have shown its face whenever central authority slackened and to have flourished as the state declined from its position as a great regional power. The most important example of folk art yet found is a hoard of bronze plaques, embossed and engraved, from a small local shrine at Giyimli (76km SE of Van). The motifs of bull, lion and eagle, or mythical multiple-beasts, with their symbolism of state power, do not appear in these folk reliefs, probably as the artists were free to create their own representations, not of an imposed state tradition but of aspects of daily life—with the assistance, naturally, of religion and magic. The depictions are coarse and primitive but clearly aim to represent the human figure with all its fallibility, not the stylized ideal that officialdom continually strove to impose upon its subjects.

Thus in art, as in religion, we see the dichotomy of the Urartian, or any other, state with the centralizing tendency of its rulers in constant opposition to the separatist tendencies of its constituent parts—the subject peoples. Yet the three centuries of Urartian dominance witnessed a flowering of art and culture which ran parallel with its economic and political power—an achievement that should not have deserved the prolonged oblivion into which it so rapidly fell.