A state which flourished from the 9th-c to the 7th-c BC in the mountains of E Turkey around L Van. Abutting onto the territory of the Assyrians, then at the height of their power, Urartu was often engaged in hostilities with them.
| Ancient Mesopotamia |
|---|
| Euphrates – Tigris |
| Assyriology |
| Cities / Empires |
| Sumer: Uruk – Ur – Eridu |
| Kish – Lagash – Nippur |
| Akkadian Empire: Akkad |
| Babylon – Isin – Susa |
| Assyria: Assur – Nineveh |
| Dur-Sharrukin – Nimrud |
| Babylonia – Chaldea |
| Elam – Amorites |
| Hurrians – Mitanni |
| Kassites – Urartu |
| Chronology |
| Kings of Sumer |
| Kings of Assyria |
| Kings of Babylon |
| Language |
| Cuneiform script |
| Sumerian – Akkadian |
| Elamite – Hurrian |
| Mythology |
| Enûma Elish |
| Gilgamesh – Marduk |
Urartu (Biainili in Urartian) was an ancient kingdom in eastern Anatolia, centered in the mountainous region around Lake Van (present-day Turkey), which existed from about 1000 BC, or earlier, until 585 BC.
Urartu was often called the "Kingdom of Ararat" in many ancient manuscripts and holy writings of different nations.
The Kingdom included three main tribal groups living within its territory: Nairi, Hay and Armen, all three were closely related to one another.
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 beginning of the 6th century BC, the Urartian Kingdom fell under pressure from Assyria to the south and nomad attacks from the north and northwest. 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 aforementioned three main tribal groups had similar languages, cultures, and ethnic origins. The kingdom grew in size thereafter and eventually divided into two main parts: Greater Armenia and Lesser Armenia.
At its apogee, Urartu stretched from northern Mesopotamia through the southern Caucasus, including parts of present-day Armenia up to Lake Sevan.
Name
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This article is part of the series on: History of Armenia |
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| Early History | |||
| Haik | |||
| Hayasa-Azzi | |||
| Kingdom of Urartu | |||
| Orontid Armenia | |||
| Kingdom of Armenia | |||
| Artaxiad Dynasty | |||
| Arsacid Dynasty | |||
| Medieval History | |||
| Marzpanate Period | |||
| Byzantine Armenia | |||
| Bagratuni Armenia | |||
| Kingdom of Vaspurakan | |||
| Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia | |||
| Foreign Rule | |||
| Persian Rule | |||
| Ottoman Rule | |||
| Russian Rule | |||
| Hamidian Massacres | |||
| Armenian Genocide | |||
| Early Independence | |||
| Democratic Republic of Armenia | |||
| Soviet Armenia | |||
| Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic | |||
| Modern Armenia | |||
| Republic of Armenia | |||
The name Urartu is from Assyrian, a dialect of Akkadian, and was given to the kingdom by its chief rivals to the south; The kingdom was named Biainili by its inhabitants, the origin of the name of Lake Van. 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.
Discovery
Friedrich Eduard Schulz travelled to the Van area in 1827 on behalf of the French Oriental Society, inspired by accounts of queen Šamiram) 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.
The first systematic collection of Urartian inscriptions was accomplished by Sir Archibald Henry Sayce, dating to the 1870s.
Waldemar Belck visited the area in 1891, discovering the Rusa stele.
In 1976, an Italian party led by Mirjo Salvini finally reached the Kelishin stele, accompanied by a massive military escort. BC fortress built by Rusas II of Urartu was discovered 35 km north of Van.
History
Origins
Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (ca.
Main period
Sardur I (ca.
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 (Diauehi and Qulha) almost to the shores of the Black Sea;
Decline
Ca.
In 714 BC, the Urartu kingdom suffered heavily from Cimmerian raids and the campaigns of Sargon II.
Urartu was then invaded by Scythians from the north, and finally conquered by the Scythians' associates, the Medes, in 612 BC. But it was not until the demise of Urartu, that the Urartians adopted the Indo-European Phrygian language and the Armens adopted certain aspects of Urartian social, political and cultural institutions.
Archaeological rediscovery
The existence of Urartu was forgotten by the 5th century AD.
Economy and politics
The people of Urartu were mostly farmers.
Their king was also the chief-priest or envoy of Khaldi, their major deity.
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.
The Urartu language was originally written using locally-developed hieroglyphics, but the Urartians adapted the Assyrian cuneiform script for most purposes. Currently, samples of Urartian written language have survived in many inscriptions found in the area of Urartu kingdom.
The Urartian legacy
The language and mythology of Urartu had important influence over the languages and cultures of Armenia and Georgia. There is no question that the Hurrian and Urartian languages were very similar, and some have used this as evidence that the Hurrian peoples of Syrian Mesopotamia had origins in the Urartu area. 2300-1200 BC) predates the timeframe of Urartu in Armenia (c.
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