Urartu (Armenian: Ուրարտու - Urartu, Assyrian: māt Urarṭu;[2] Babylonian: Urashtu), corresponding to Ararat (Armenian: Արարատյան Թագավորություն) or Kingdom of Van (Armenian: Վանի Թագավորություն, Urartian: Biai, Biainili;[3]) was an Iron Age kingdom centered around Lake Van in the Armenian Highlands.
Strictly speaking, Urartu is the Assyrian term for a geographical region, while "kingdom of Urartu" or "Biainili lands" are terms used in modern historiography for the Iron Age state that arose in that region. That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the political entity was already pointed out by König (1955).[4] The landscape corresponds to the mountainous plateau between Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands. The kingdom rose to power in the mid 9th century BC, but was conquered by Media in the early 6th century BC.
The name Urartu comes from Assyrian sources: the Assyrian King Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of "Uruatri".[5][6] The Shalmaneser text uses the name Urartu to refer to a geographical region, not a kingdom, and names eight "lands" contained within Urartu (which at the time of the campaign were still disunited). The kingdom's native name was Biainili, also spelt Biaineli, (from which is derived the Armenian toponym Վան "Van"),[7] but prior to the 8th century BC, they also called their now united kingdom "Nairi".[8] Scholars[9] 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 also appears as the name of a kingdom in Jeremiah 51:27, mentioned together with Minni and Ashkenaz.
Scholars such as Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt (1910) believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after their god Khaldi.[10] The Nairi, an Iron Age people of the Van area, are sometimes considered related or identical.[11]
In the early 6th century BC, the Urartian Kingdom was replaced by the Armenian Orontid dynasty. In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in 521/0[12] BC by the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Assyrian is called Arminiya in Old Persian and Harminuia in Elamite.
Shubria was part of the Urartu confederation. Later, there is reference to a district in the area called Arme or Urme, which some scholars have linked to the name Armenia.[13][14]
Urartu comprised an area of approximately 200,000 square miles (520,000 km2), extending from the river Kura in the north, to the northern foothills of the Taurus Mountains in the south; and from the Euphrates in the west to the Caspian sea in the east.[15]
At its apogee, Urartu stretched from the borders of northern Mesopotamia to the southern Caucasus, including present-day Armenia and southern Georgia 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 Fortress, Argishtihinili, Anzaf, Cavustepe and Başkale, as well as Teishebaini (Karmir Blur, Red Mound) and others.
Inspired by the writings of the medieval Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi (who had described Urartian works in Van and attributed them to the legendary queen Semiramis), the French scholar Jean Saint-Martin suggested that his government send Friedrich Eduard Schulz, a German professor, to the Van area in 1827 on behalf of the French Oriental Society.[16] Schulz discovered and copied numerous cuneiform inscriptions, partly in Assyrian and partly in a hitherto unknown language. Schulz also re-discovered the Kelishin stele, bearing an Assyrian-Urartian bilingual inscription, located on the Kelishin pass on the current Iraqi-Iranian border. A summary account of his initial discoveries was published in 1828. Schulz and four of his servants were murdered by Kurds in 1829 near Başkale. His notes were later recovered and published in Paris in 1840. In 1828, the British Assyriologist Henry Creswicke Rawlinson had attempted to copy the inscription on the Kelishin stele, but failed because of the ice on the stele's front side. The German scholar R. Rosch made a similar attempt a few years later, but he and his party were attacked and killed.
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.
A Urartian
cauldron, from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
Ankara
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 Borisovich Piotrovsky excavated Karmir-Blur, discovering Teišebai, the city of the god of war, Teišeba. In 1938–40, excavations by the American scholars Kirsopp and Silva Lake 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 SS Athenia. 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 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 c. 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.
Urartu under
Aramu 860-40 BC
Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (ca. 1274 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 which he conquered. Uruartri itself was in the region around Lake Van. The Nairi states were repeatedly subjected to further attacks and invasions 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 the Assyrians under 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.
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).
The temporary eclipse of Assyria in the first half of the eight century B.C., had helped Urartu's growth, as it became the largest and most powerful state in the Near East, all this was done in little time.[17]
Sarduri I (ca. 832–820 BC), son of king Aramu, successfully resisted the Assyrian attacks from the south, led by Shalmaneser III, consolidated the military power of the state and moved the capital to Tushpa (modern Van, on the shore of Lake Van). His son, Ispuini (ca. 820–800 BC) annexed the neighbouring state of Musasir and made his son Sarduri II viceroy; Musasir later became an important religious center of the Urartian Kingdom. 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. Argishti also founded several new cities, most notably Erebuni in 782 BC. 6600 captured slaves worked on the construction of the new city.[citation needed]
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.
Tiglath Pileser III of Assyria conquered 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.[18]
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 crushingly defeated by Sargon II at Lake Urmia. He subsequently committed suicide in shame. [19]
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, the 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 Sardur III (645–635 BC) referring to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as his "father." [20][21]
According to Urartian epigraphy, 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 or 585 BC). Late during the 600s 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 the Great together with Nabopolassar of Babylon and the Scythians conquered Assyria after it had been badly weakened by civil war. Many Urartian ruins of the period show evidence of destruction by fire. This would indicate two scenarios—either Media subsequently conquered Urartu, bringing about its subsequent demise, or Urartu 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.[22] 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 ..." [23]
Medieval Armenian chronicles corroborate the Greek and Hebrew sources. In particular, Movses Khorenatsi writes that Armenian prince Paruyr Skayordi helped the Median king Cyaxares and his allies conquer Assyria, for which Cyaxares recognized him as the king of Armenia, while Media conquered Armenia only much later—under Astyages.[24] It is possible that the last Urartian king, Rusa IV, had connections to the future incoming Armenian Orontids dynasty.[citation needed]
Urartu was destroyed in either 590 BC[25] or 585 BC.[26] By the late sixth century, Urartu had certainly been replaced by Armenia.[27]
Little is known of what happened to the region of Urartu under the foreign rule following its fall. The most widely accepted theory is that settlers related to Phrygians, or more specifically tribes speaking a proto-Armenian language conventionally named Armeno-Phrygians, who had already settled in the western parts of the region prior to the establishment of Urartu,[28] had become the ruling elite under the Medes, followed by the Achaemenid Persians.[29] These Armeno-Phrygians, referred to as Armenians as of now, would have mingled with the disparate peoples of Urartu, resulting a fusion of languages and cultures. The Armenians multiplied in numbers and spread their language throughout the territory of Urartu. The Urartians, during its dominance, had amalgamated 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.[30] The region formerly known as Urartu became an Achaemenid satrapy called Armina,[31] which later became an independent kingdom called Armenia. The Urartians who were in the satrapy were then assimilated, becoming part of the Armenian ethnogenesis.[citation needed] However, other Urartians might have kept their former identity. According to Herodotus, the Alarodians (Alarodioi)—believed to be Urartian remnants—were part of the 18th Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and formed a special contingent in the grand army of Xerxes I.[32] Some Urartian traditions, such as architecture and dam constructions, were absorbed in the following Persianates,[33] and most probably persisted in the Satrapy of Armina. Urartu did not give birth to a direct successor, however, the Satrapy of Armina, as an entity which emerged immediately after its fall, inherited its cultural, traditional, geographical and some linguistic aspects. Darius I the Great, in his famous Behistun Inscription, calls the region Armina/Armenia in Old Persian and Urashtu/Urartu in Babylonian, clearly equating the two, suggesting that both are somewhat part of a same continuous entity. As the Armenian identity developed in the region, the memory of Urartu faded and finally disappeared.[34]
The language spoken in Urartu is now extinct. Little is known of what was spoken in the geopolitical region from the time of Urartu's fall in the 6th century BC, to the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century AD. In ancient Persian inscriptions, references to Armina (Armenia) indicate that Urartian was still spoken, or was in a transitional period into being replaced with the Armenian language. In fact, the ethnonym "Armina" itself and all other names attested with reference to the rebellions against Darius in Armina (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. They are also not Iranian, but seem related to Urartean.[35]
The name of the province of Ayrarat in the Kingdom of Armenia is believed to be a continuum of the Urartu toponym (or Biblical Ararat).[36] The modern name of Mount Ararat is derived from the Biblical Mountains of Ararat (or Mountains of Urartu), and the Ararat Province of modern Armenia is in turn named after the mountain.
The economic structure of Urartu was similar to other states of the Ancient World, especially to Assyria. The state was heavily dependent on agriculture, which required a centralized effort to irrigation. These works managed by kings, in their implementation participated the free inhabitants, and perhaps the prisoners as slaves. Royal governors, influent people and, perhaps, free peoples have their own allotments. Individual territories within the state had to pay taxes the central government grain, horses, bulls, etc. In peacetime, Urartu probably led an active trade with Assyria, providing there cattle, horses, iron and wine.
Agriculture in Urartu
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| Part of iron pitchfork, found near Lake Van and Iron plowshare, found during excavations in Rusahinili (Toprakkale). |
Urartian grain bruiser |
According to archaeological data farming on the territory of Urartu began to develop since the Neolithic period, even in the III millennium BC. In Urartian age agriculture was well developed and closely related to the Assyrian on the selection of cultures and ways of processing.[37] From cuneiform sources 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 them are still used for irrigation.
Depiction of the Urartian god
Khaldi
With the expansion of Urartian territory, many of the gods worshiped by conquered peoples were incorporated into the Urartian pantheon, as a mean to confirm the annexation of territories and promote political stability. However, although the Urartians incorporated many deities into their pantheon, they appeared to be selective in their choices. Although many different Urartian kings made conquests in the North, such as the Sevan region, many of those peoples' gods remain excluded. This was most likely the case because Urartians considered the people in the North to be barbaric, and disliked their deities as much as they did them. Good examples of incorporated deities however are the goddesses Bagvarti (Bagmashtu) and Selardi. On Mheri-Dur, or Meher-Tur (the "Gate of Mehr"), 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.[38]
The pantheon was headed by a triad made up of Khaldi (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 Khaldi. Some temples to Khaldi were part of the royal palace complex while others were independent structures.
Some of the main gods and goddesses include:[39]
Urartian, the language used in the cuneiform inscriptions of Urartu, was an ergative-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. There are also claims of autochthonous Urartian hieroglyphs, but this remains uncertain.[40]
The Urartians originally used the locally-developed hieroglyphs (not yet deciphered) 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. Examples of Urartian written language have survived in many inscriptions found throughout the area of the Urartu kingdom.
Urartian cuneiform inscriptions are divided into two groups. A minority is written in Akkadian (the official language of Assyria). However, the bulk of the cuneiforms are 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.[41][42][43] 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 more than 1000[citation needed]. 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 Urartian language is from Armenian—around 70 word-roots.[44] The greatest number of common words with Urartean is in Northeast Caucasian language family. (169 word-roots) [45]
Unlike the cuneiform inscriptions, 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.[46]
The Iron Age Urartian state was the successor of the Late Bronze Age Hurrian state of Mitanni, and the Urartian language spoken by the ruling class is the successor of the Hurrian language (see Hurro-Urartian).[42][47] The Urartian state was in turn succeeded in the area in the 6th century BC by the Orontid Armenian kingdom,.[48] The presence of a Proto-Armenian population in the area already during Urartian rule is subject to speculation: It is generally assumed that Proto-Armenian speakers entered Anatolia from around 1200 BC, ultimately deriving from a Paleo-Balkans context, and over the following centuries spread east to the Armenian Highland.[49][50][51] A competing theory 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 Proto-Armenians in the area during the entire lifetime of the Urartian state.[52]
After the disappearance of Urartu as a political entity, the Armenians dominated the highlands, absorbing portions of the previous Urartian culture in the process.[53] The Armenians became, thus, the direct successors of the kingdom of Urartu and inherited their domain. Urartu is to Armenians what ancient Britons are to the English, and Gauls are to the French.[54]
While the Urartian language was spoken by the royal elite, the population they ruled may have been multi-ethnic, and in late Urartian times largely (pre-Proto-)Armenian-speaking.[55] 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 belief, advocated primarily by the official historiography of Armenia, but also supported by experts in Assyrian and Urartian studies such as Igor Diakonov, Giorgi Melikishvili, Mikhail Nikolsky Ivan Mestchaninov, suggests that Urartian was solely the formal written language of the state, while its inhabitants, including the royal family, spoke Armenian.[49] 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 or was used only for official purposes.[49] This belief is compatible with the "Armenian hypothesis" suggested by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Tamaz Gamkrelidze (1984), postulating the Armenian language as an in situ development of a 3rd millennium BC Proto-Indo-European language.[52]
According to the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture:
The Armenians according to Diakonoff, are then an amalgam of the Hurrian (and Urartians), Luvians and the Proto-Armenian Mushki who carried their IE language eastwards across Anatolia. After arriving in its historical territory, Proto-Armenian would appear to have undergone massive influence on part the languages it eventually replaced. Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.[56]
Urartu has come to play a role in 19th to 20th century Armenian nationalism.[57]
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- ^ Eberhard Schrader, The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament (1885), p. 65.
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- ^ Urartu on Britannica
- ^ a b c (Armenian) Katvalyan, M. and Karo Ghafadaryan. «Ուրարտու» (Urartu). Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. vol. xii. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1986, pp. 276–283.
- ^ Dyakonov, I.M., V.D. Neronova, and I.S. Sventsitskaya. History of the Ancient World. vol. ii, Moscow, 1983.
- ^ "Armenian origins: An overview of ancient and modern sources and theories", by Thomas J. Samuelian, Iravunq, 2000, 34 p., ASIN: B0006E8NC26; p. 14
- ^ a b See Gamkrelidze, Thomas and Vyacheslav Ivanov Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-language and a Proto-culture. New York : M. de Gruyter, 1995.
- ^ Star Spring Urartu
- ^ Google Books, The Kingdom of Armenia: A History. England : M.Chahin, 2001. pp. 182
- ^ 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 ISBN 963-9116-48-3.
- ^ “Armenians” in ""Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture or EIEC, edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams, published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn.
- ^ Anne Elizabeth Redgate, The Armenians, Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-521-48065-9, p. 276.
- 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 978-2-940032-14-3
- 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.
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Urartu topics
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Urartu at its greatest expanse, ca. 743 BC
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