Research history of Urartu

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The research history of Urartus describes the steps to research the settlements, life and history of the empire of Urartu with its capital Tuschpa (Tušpa, today's Van in Turkey) on Lake Van .

Research history

First researcher in Van

In 1827, 15 years before the exploration of Mesopotamia in Ninive (1842) and Khorsabad (1843), the 28-year-old Friedrich Eduard Schulz traveled to the Vans area on behalf of the French Société asiatique .

This “literary journey” was inspired by the descriptions of Moses by Choren , an Armenian historian of the 5th century, who wrote the legend of the Assyrian Queen Shamiram (Šamiram), whom he probably knew from oral tradition. This legend describes the construction of a new city "east of the salt lake" and "south of the Ararat valley". Carl Ritter , a geographer, suggested that the ruins of this city were to be found east of Lake Van .

Schulz was able to confirm this. He found numerous inscriptions, some in Assyrian and some in a language that was previously unknown. Through his 42 copies of these inscriptions and the description of the Van rock, the ruins could be identified as the remains of the city of Tushpa (Tušpa).

Exploring the Kelischin stele

Schulz is also considered the discoverer of the Kel-i-Schin-Stele (Kelišin), a Urartian-Assyrian bilingual made of blue diorite stone, which he found on the mountain pass of the same name at an altitude of 2981 meters between Oschnaviyeh (Iran) and Rawanduz (Iraq) Iranian side had found. At the end of 1829 Schulz was murdered by Kurds near Başkale . Parts of his notes could be taken from the murderer, but there was no copy of the Kelischin stele.

On October 26, 1838, the English Assyriologist, diplomat and officer Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson tried to make a copy of the Kelischin stele. A copy was not possible in winter at −20 ° C and an icy surface. In 1849 he traveled back to England without having achieved anything (and safe), but not empty-handed. He donated a valuable collection of antiques to the British Museum in London.

A few years later, the German scholar R. Rosch tried to reach the stele in the summer, but he and his 38 companions were attacked and murdered at the Kelischin stele.

Charles Texier , the discoverer of Boğazköy , also visited Van in 1838. He was followed at the end of the 1840s by Sir Austen Henry Layard , the excavator of Nineveh and Nimrud , who described the rock tombs on the castle hill of Van and made a sketch of the Argishti Chamber.

The reports of Friedrich Schulz's discoveries drew other researchers to this area who made copies of the inscriptions, such as the French Deyrolle, whose copies are now kept in the Louvre.

Treasure hunt and the first dig on Toprakkale

The inhabitants took advantage of this European interest in the antiquities of Van at the beginning of the 1870s when they searched the freely accessible limestone rock Toprakkale ("Erdburg"), the royal residence of the 7th century, and sold their finds to art dealers. Some of these artifacts came to the British Museum, prompting excavation at Toprakkale.

The Englishman Captain E. Clayton, the American teacher Dr. Raynolds and the Turkish archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam carried out an excavation on the rock north-west of Van in 1880/81, but it was soon abandoned because the findings from Mesopotamia did not materialize. The English dig was poorly and unprofessionally carried out. The adobe masonry was not recognized as such and dug up. In addition, the excavation was partly unsupervised, which makes it very likely that the find would be misappropriated. The results of this excavation were not published until 70 years later by RD Barnett. The English left Toprakkale disappointed, the residents used the exposed area to steal more finds and used stones from the exposed Ḫaldi temple to build houses.

First cuneiform research

In the 1870s Sir Archibald Henry Sayce made the first systematic collection of Urartian cuneiform inscriptions. As a result of the progress made in deciphering the Assyrian cuneiform script , Sayce was able to determine that the inscriptions in the unknown language did not represent Assyrian or any other Semitic language . Various researchers tried to decipher the collected inscriptions, including François Lenormant in 1871 with the help of Georgian and Andreas David Mordtmann 1872–1877 with the help of Armenian , but all failed.

In 1890/91, the German engineer Karl Sester , who discovered the monuments on Nemrut Dağı , worked in Van and collected cuneiform inscriptions, which, however, did not arouse much interest in the German Orient Society . In his letters he constantly complained about the inadequate work of the English on Toprakkale.

Belck and Lehmann-Haupt

The chemist Waldemar Belck went to the area of ​​Van in 1891, where he discovered the “ Inscription stele from the Priestersee ” or “ Rusa -Stele from Keşiş Gölü (Priestersee)”. This describes the construction of a reservoir to supply Tuschpa's water and the new residence. It is considered to be the founding charter of the younger government center Rusahinili (city of Rusa, meaning the ruler Rusa II ). This center was recognized by the researchers as Toprakkale, where they then, inspired by this find, headed for an "Armenian expedition".

This expedition was planned for 1893, but could not be carried out because of the Turkish-Armenian unrest. Rudolf Virchow introduced Belck to Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt . With the support of the Rudolf Virchow Foundation, both finally undertook the planned expedition to Van and the surrounding area in 1898/99. It took them from Berlin via Warsaw to Odessa on the coast of the Black Sea . They took the ship to Novorossiysk , from where they traveled to Tbilisi to get to Van via Yerevan and Tabriz . There they set up their camp, from where they undertook further expeditions. They started digging on Toprakkale just six days after their arrival.

In doing so, Belck came across the Kel-i schin stele discovered by Friedrich Schulz. He had to cancel this expedition, however, because Kurds attacked him between Haek and the Kelischin Pass, but his companion Ali Chân was able to repel them. A few days later, Belck and Lehmann-Haupt tried it together. Although they reached the stele, they were unable to make a copy because of the bad weather conditions. A little later another murder attempt was carried out on Belck. Although he got away safely, there was a diplomatic problem between the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II. The latter finally paid Belck compensation in the amount of 60,000 gold marks.

The excavations of the two were a lot better than the excavation of the British Museum on Toprakkale , but neither did Belck and Lehmann-Haupt recognize adobe masonry as the walls of buildings. Therefore, they called an area an “area without buildings” and did not dig there.

Their discoveries brought the deciphering of the Urartian language a lot further. They were the last Western European scientists who were able to work in this area before the outbreak of World War I , as the Russian occupation in 1915 did not allow further excavations.

Between the world wars

The Russians Nikolai Jakowlewitsch Marr and Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli dug during the Russian occupation of Eastern Anatolia from 1916 on the north slope of the Van rock. They discovered a four-sided stele with the annals of Sarduri II , which depicts the victories of Urartus over their neighbors.

During this period, other European scholars focused on the inscriptions that had brought them to Europe because they were denied access to Van. In further attempts to decipher this, Albrecht Götze took the most important equations from the Kel-i-Schin stele , and Johannes Friedrich researched the basics of grammar . Its first outline is still valid today.

The Russian Boris Borisovič Piotrovskij began excavations in 1939 on the Karmir-Blur ("red hill") near Yerevan , under which the city of Teišebai URU (city of the weather god Teišeba ) is hidden. He found the remains of a citadel, city wall and planned apartment blocks.

In 1938–1940 the Americans Kirsop Lake and Silva Lake wanted to check the old excavation results and dates on Van Rocks by digging. With the outbreak of the Second World War , however, their work came to an abrupt end: most of their finds went down with the ship Athenia , which was torpedoed by a German submarine . Manfred Korfmann published the documents and photographs he received in 1977. Hans-Volkmar Hermann described the state of research at this point in time as follows: “... the history of the exploration of the old center on Lake Van presents itself as a chain of unsuccessful or short-lived undertakings, started, broken off and, above all, never really published. "

In the post-war period

In the post-war period, archaeological research was initially limited to Soviet Armenia. Armenian scientists continued the work of Piotrovsky. Work on Karmir-Blur ( Teišebai URU ) resumed in the 1960s and 1970s, and from 1950 Arinberd ( Erebuni ) was excavated. It was found that the fortress had been abandoned in the 7th century and the entire estate had been brought to Teischebai. In Teišebai URU, among other things, shields with dedicatory inscriptions from Erebuni were found. The fortress was neither destroyed by fire nor destroyed by acts of war. Since 1964 excavations have taken place in Armavir (Argištihinili), the then largest administrative center in Transcaucasia.

Charles Burney began from 1956 on site inspections in the Van area, where he discovered Urartean fortresses, irrigation systems and other sites. This gave the impetus for further research in the eastern Turkish provinces.

In 1959, the Turks Tahsin Özgüç in Altıntepe near Erzincan and Arif Erzen on Toprakkale began further investigations. When Özgüç examined the chamber grave found during railway construction work in 1938 , he found other stone graves with bronze inventory, which suggests rich burials. Nearby, he discovered a temple whose wall paintings were similar to those in Arinberd (Erebuni). Ores found in the four corners of the Ḫaldi temple on Toprakkale foundations made of bronze as well as silver and gold plates. He also started an excavation at Sardurihinili Castle ( Çavuştepe ), southeast of Van .

In the late 1960s, Wolfram Kleiss from the German Archaeological Institute gained numerous insights into Urartian architecture and ceramics. On the one hand he found and measured Urartian sites in large parts of northwest Iran, on the other hand he dug together with Stephan Kroll in the Bastam fortress .

In 1976 the adventurous Kel-i schin stele was visited again by Italian scientists. Among them was the Italian archaeologist Mirjo Salvini . They had special permission to visit the stele for a day and were heavily escorted by the military.

The political events of 1978–79, which finally led to the first Gulf War , closed this area again to foreign archeology.

Research after the Gulf War

In recent years, Oktan Belli has carried out exploratory trips on Turkish territory. The development of the necropolis in the north of Van province of Erzurum , the exploration of the area around Van and the systematic exploration of the Van rock by Tarhan-Sevin are also results of the recent times.

In 1989, on the shores of Lake Van (35 km north of Van) in Ayanıs, a 7th century fortress (founded by Rusa II) was discovered and dug by Altan Çilingiroğlu.

Despite the resumption of research, of the 300 or so Urartian sites in Turkey, Iran, the Armenian Republic and Iraq, probably only a third to a half have been scientifically recorded.

Even today, Urartian sites, especially graves, are plundered by the local residents, as the sale of Urartian artefacts to Europeans and Americans is lucrative. Such pieces then end up on the international art trade, as happened, for example, in 1971 with a large number of punched bronze sheets . Later research revealed that villagers not far from Çavuştepe, in Giyimli , southeast of Van, found bronze sheets while mining stones for a mosque, which they traded in exchange for sugar and salt from traveling traders. Antique dealers became aware of this and found over 2,000 of these sheets, which they sold - fortunately partly to Turkish museums. It can be assumed that there was a temple at Giyimli.

Research into the early Iron Age in later Urartu has been intensified in both Turkey and Armenia in recent decades.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Salvini wants to ascribe the stele to Rusa Erimenāḫi
  2. ↑ Lehmann-Haupt 1910
  3. ^ Charles Burney: Urartian Irrigation Works. In: Anatolian Studies 22, 1972, 179-186.
  4. ↑ Wartke 1993.