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exaggerates the extent of Biainili’s power and conquests during the reign of Rusa son of Argishti, there is a clear implication that the policies of frequent campaigning and rounding up captive populations of the 8th century were still being pursued.
Archaeology makes it clear that Biainili ended violently, but the circumstances and actors in the catastrophe are unknown. Even the date is disputed over a range of approximately half a century. Rusa, son of Argishti was the last king to do any significant building or to record military conquests.21 All of the citadels he created appear to have been violently destroyed, which is no doubt one of the reasons they have been such important archaeological sites. In their ruins have been found seal impressions of individuals who have names that sound royal: Rusa son of Rusa, Sarduri son of Rusa, etc., but these individuals bear title asuli, of which the significance is unknown, but does not mean king.22 They may have been members of the royal family, but there is no evidence that they ever ruled. The last Assyrian reference to an Urartian king is provided by Assurbanipal of Assyria around 643 BC.23 The Sarduri he mentions is a pathetic figure, begging for Assyrian favor, and no inscription or other material evidence for his existence has been discovered in Urartu.
FORTRESSES, SETTLEMENTS, AND ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES
The material culture associated with Biainili/Urartu is almost entirely the creation of the state whose history we have just outlined.24 Some of its features were borrowed from identifiable sources, as the Assyrian imprint on its writing and art clearly demonstrates. Other aspects are much harder to pin down, if not wholly new creations. Perhaps the most impressive accomplishments of the Urartian kings, providing the deepest insight into the civilization they governed, are seen in architecture. At all levels, from fortress building to the details of individual structures, the Urartians appear to be innovators in this sphere.
In the conditions of warfare in which the state of Biainili was formed, it is not surprising that the creation of military strongholds was the first priority of the state. Its first known site and capital was at built at Van on a spine of rock which stretches east–west for more than a mile. It is a natural fortress, presenting a vertical face on its southern side and more gradual, yet still quite precipitous slope on the north. Two deep trenches were cut through the stone of this ridge to enhance the defenses of the central part. Stone working on the citadel was not limited to fortifications, and as time went on it became crowded with cultic and mortuary structures. Little remains of the actual buildings that the Urartians erected here, but the amount of rock they hacked away to prepare foundations for them is impressive nevertheless. When possible, Urartian architects preferred to put the foundations of the walls they created directly on bedrock, and carved steps into the rock for this purpose. In addition, they prepared large horizontal surfaces at various elevations on the citadel upon which imposing buildings are presumed to have stood. Rock-cut chambers for royal tombs, in two cases approached by long staircases cut in the living rock, were made on the south side of the citadel in the course of the 8th century. The largest of
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these are the Argishti chambers, noted earlier, outside of which the annals of this king are carved. One area in which particularly dramatic modification of the living rock is found the north side of the citadel, were an enormous platform was carved out of the slope and two niches over 5 m tall with rounded tops were sunk into the vertical face thus created (Figure 9.8). One of these housed a stele bearing the annals of Sarduri II.25 Running down the slope from the platform in front of these was a large grooved channel, presumably for carrying away the blood of sacrifices.
The citadel rock was the heart of ancient Tushpa (Assyrian Turusˇpa), the capital of of Biainili and played a role of special significance in the kingdom’s history. From beginning to end,
Urartian kings of claimed lordship of Tushpa as the concluding element in their titulary. Almost nothing is known of the settlement associated with this place, however. Excavations conducted on a höyük north of the citadel rock revealed some structures, but no city in the sense of a large residential area. There may be Urartian remains to the south of the citadel beneath the remains of the historic city of Van, but they are inaccessible. For an appreciation of what Urartian architects and planners created, one must look outside of the capital, to the fortresses that they erected throughout the territories they controlled.
The favored locations for construction were natural eminences that overlooked routes of communication and areas of fertile ground where irrigation could intensify agricultural productivity. These had to be high enough to be defensible, but not so high as to be isolated from the productive parts of the countryside; large enough to contain storage facilities, arsenals, and administrative buildings, but small enough to be surrounded by fortification wall. The outer walls had foundations of stone boulders rising several meters above the footings that were cut for them in bedrock. The superstructures were made of mud brick. No outer fortress wall survives to its full elevation, but depictions in art show several stories topped by crenellations and towers projecting above (Figure 9.13).26 Wall thicknesses of 4 m and more also suggest impressive height. The walls were buttressed, sometimes with major towers at places where the angle of the wall changed. The walls of larger sites exploited the potential of the terrain, but sometimes smaller fortresses were laid out with simple rectangular plans.
The two fortresses at Anzaf were created at the end of the 9th century straddling a road approaching Van from the northeast. Lower Anzaf is the more modest of the two, but it is still very substantial, with a rectangular enclosure made of massive stones and a collection of storerooms. Upper Anzaf is a very complex site, which in its final form included buildings at several elevations, an outer town, and a massive store-room complex. On the highest point, presumably central focus of the site, was a temple with a dedicatory inscription of Minua built into one of its corners.27
Erebuni, in modern Erevan (to which, presumably, it gives its name), was founded by Argishti
I a generation later. Here the whole citadel has been cleared and one has a good sense of its layout, despite some post-Urartian modifications. The temple lies in the heart of a compact arrangement of rows of rectangular rooms and courtyards. An inscription at its entrance records its dedication by Argishti to the otherwise unknown god Iarsha.28 The lower parts of the walls of
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the temple and many of the citadel buildings are constructed of closely joined ashlar blocks, which is another characteristic of the finest Urartian buildings.
Ayanis, one of the many centers created by Rusa son of Agishti in the 7th century may serve as an example of a later Urartian site. The fortress overlooks Lake Van from a steep hill which was surrounded by a strong, regularly buttressed fortification wall. There is a monumental gateway on the southeast side, in which Rusa placed a dedicatory inscription, recording his construction of Rusahinili Eidurukai, a temple to Haldi, and agricultural works. Beside this entrance the walls are cased with carefully dressed stone. From here, one ascends through a series of courtyards whose roofs were supported by square pylons of black stone with reinforced corners. In the largest of these courtyards, near the summit of the mound is a temple of Haldi, whose facade is covered with an inscription detailing Rusa’s building activities (Figure 9.14). The interior of the single room of the temple was lavishly decorated with stone inlay figures, and an alabaster podium on which the cult object once stood was incised with winged creatures and the entwined vegetation of a sacred tree design. Storerooms on the southern side of the temple area contained bronze shields, weapons, helmets, and at least one cauldron. The temple itself was adorned with bronzes, including an ornate shield with a lion head boss. Many of the objects from this area
Figure 9.14 Temple courtyard at Ayanis. Stone pylons surround main temple building (Photo: courtesy Altan A. Çilingirog˘ lu)
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