Urartu: Encyclopedia II - Urartu - History

Urartu - History

Urartu - Origins

Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (ca. 1270 BC) first mention a loose confederation called the Uruartri or Nairi in North-East Anatolia, in the region around Lake Van. They 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). These towns or tribes became a unified kingdom under king Aramu (ca. 860-843 BC), whose capital at Arzashkun was captured by Shalmaneser III.

Urartu - Main period

Sardur I (ca. 832-820 BC), son of Lutipri, seems to have been a usurper who founded the main dynasty. He 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 Sardur 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. Argishtish I (ca. 785-760 BC) added more territories along the Araxes river and Lake Erivan, and frustrated Shalmaneser IV's campaigns against him.

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 Urmia, and beyond; and south to the sources of the Tigris.

Urartu - Decadence

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.

Urartu was then invaded by Scythians from the north, and finally conquered by the Scythians' associates, the Medes, in 612 BC. Many Urartu ruins show evidence of destruction by fire. Even before the Urartuian empire came to an end, Armenians had been mixing with the Urartuians. But it wasn't until the demise of Urartu, that the Urartuians adopted the Indo-European Armenian language and the Armenians adopted certain aspects of Urartuian social, politcal and cultural institutions. The Urartuians thus became the Armenians and vice versa.

Urartu - Arcaheological rediscovery

The existence of Urartu was forgotten by the 5th century AD. It was not rediscovered until historical and archaeological work done in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when Urartian ruins were generally assumed to be Assyrian.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki