Rusa II.

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Urartu at the time of Rusa II. The northern border is pushed too far to the north here, Qulha is no longer documented in writing. The Assyrian border is too far north in the area of ​​Lake Urmi

Rusa II was a Urartian king. His exact reign is unknown. It is usually 680 to 650 BC. BC (or 685–645). He was one of the most important Urartian kings. The name was probably pronounced Ursa - an R at the beginning of the word is not used for any other Urartian word - so the name is sometimes also written in Assyrian sources. According to an inscription from Ashurbanipal , he was also called Jaja.

title

According to the inscription on the gate of Ayanıs, Rusa has the titles:

Dynastic relationships

Rusa II was the son of his predecessor Argišti II and temporarily regained the important position of Urartus in the Middle East. He tried to maintain good relations with the Scythian and Cimmerian immigrants who oppressed Assyria . King of the Assyrians at that time was Assurhaddon . Rusa's II succession is not clear; He may have been succeeded by Erimena , who could have been his son. However, Erimena does not have any of the traditional royal names, which could indicate a break in the dynastic sequence. Erimena's son Sarduri III. was then sure to be king again.

Domination

Bernbeck assumes that under Rusa II the Urartean society changed fundamentally. Among other things, he introduced a differentiated bureaucracy. Rusa boasts in an inscription from the temple in the Rusahinili fortress of the victory over Assur , Targu, Etiuni, perhaps the valley of the Kura , Tabal , Qairanu, Ḫatti , Muški and Siluquini ( Suluqu south of Lake Sevan ?), Inhabitants of these countries were after Urarṭu deported. He abducted women from Muški, Ḫatti and Ḫaliṭu. The above map shows an area of ​​dominion in the north that is certainly too large, the area of ​​Lake Sevan was never under Urartian rule.

buildings

Rusa II developed a brisk construction activity, the provinces in Transcaucasia experienced a heyday. On Lake Van near Tušpa (today Van) in the center of the empire, Rusa II had the city of Rusaḫinili ("City of Rusa", today Toprakkale ) built and irrigation channels, vineyards and fields built. In contrast to its predecessors, Rusa built not just one but five fortresses. They can usually be assigned by appropriate inscriptions. Toprakkale replaced the fortress of Van, Kamir blur the fortress of Erebuni . At the end of his reign, the fortresses of Ayanıs , Yukan Anzaf and Çavuştepe were destroyed. This destruction is usually attributed to the Cimmerians, but Çilingiroğlu and Salvini do not rule out a devastating earthquake either.

Urartean name today's name location construction The End Remarks
Ḫaldiei URU Ziuqinui Kef Kalesi 6 km northeast of Adilcevaz on the north-western shore of Lake Van under Rusa II. - Identified Lower Town of Burney
Rusaḫinili Eiduru-kai Ayanıs Kalesı Aǧartı northeast of Van, Van Province 651 BC BC under Rusa II destroyed at the end of the reign of Rusa II, perhaps by earthquakes Lower town in the north (Pinatbası), east (Güneytepe) and south of the citadel
Rusaḫinili Qilbanikai Toprakkale northeast of the Citadel of Van, on a foothill of the Zimzim Mountains Rusa II, built after Bastam violently destroyed Lower town to the east and northeast
Rusa-i URU.TUR Bastam Ak Cay valley above the Qara Ziyaeddin plain, Choy district , western Azerbaijan, Iran under Rusa II. destroyed by the Medes? Road paving as a previous building in the 8th century
Teišebai URU Kamir blur Bank of the Razdan (Zanga), northwest of Yerevan , Armenia under Rusa II. - Lower town lies south and west of the citadel

Material culture

His rule saw profound changes in the Urartian material culture. The first cuneiform tablets date from his reign. Locations:

  • Toprakkale
  • Kamir blur
  • Bastam
  • Ayanıs
Stele inscription from Keschir-göl about the creation of the water supply by Rusa II.

Inscriptions

Inscriptions from Rusa II are remarkably rare and come mainly from the royal fortresses.

  • The chemist Waldemar Belck discovered the " Rusa stele from Keşiş Gölü (Priestersee)" near Tušpa in 1891 . It documents the construction of a reservoir for the water supply Tušpas and Rusaḫinilis.
  • Gate inscription from Ayanıs

Dating

The only fixed point for the reign of Rusa is a mention in a prayer of Assurbanipal from 653/652. A bar from the Ḫaldi temple in the Ayanıs citadel had a felling date from 677 to 673 + 4 / -7 BC. BC (no forest edge), which confirms the traditional dating approach for Rusa.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir, Agency, innovation, change, continuity: considering the agency of Rusa II in the production of the imperial art and architecture of Urartu in the 7th Century BC. In: Peterson, DL / Popova, LM / Smith AT (eds.), Beyond the Steppe and the sown. Proceedings of the 2002 University of Chicago Conference on Eurasian Archeology. Colloquia Pontica 13 (Leiden Brill 2006), 264
  2. ^ Reinard Bernbeck, Political Structure and Ideology in Urartu. Archaeological communications from Iran and Turan 35/36, 267-312
  3. ^ Paul E. Zimansky, Archaeological inquiries into ethno-linguistic diversity in Urarṭu. In: Robert Drews (Ed.), Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language family (Washington: Institute for the Study of Man, 2001), 22
  4. ↑ Miroj Salvini, History and Culture of the Urartians, Darmstadt 1995, 108
  5. ↑ Raffaele Biscione, Simon Hmayakyan Neda Parmegiani (ed.), The North-Eastern frontier Urartians and non-Urartians in the Sevan Lake basin. Rome: CNR, Istituto di studi sulle civiltà dell'Egeo e del Vicino Oriente, 2002
  6. ↑ Altan Çilingiroğlu / Mirjo Salvini, When was the Castle of Ayanıs built and what is the meaning of the word 'Šuri'? Anatolian Iron Ages 4, Proceedings of the Fourth Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium, Mersin 19-23 May 1997. Anatolian Studies 49, 1999, 56
  7. ↑ Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir, Agency, innovation, change, continuity: considering the agency of Rusa II in the production of the imperial art and architecture of Urartu in the 7th Century BC. In: Peterson, DL / Popova, LM / Smith AT (eds.), Beyond the Steppe and the sown. Proceedings of the 2002 University of Chicago Conference on Eurasian Archeology. Colloquia Pontica 13 (Leiden Brill 2006) 267
  8. ↑ P. Kuniholm, Anatolian Iron Ages 4 Proceedings of the Fourth Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium, Mersin, 19-23 May 1997. Anatolian Studies 49, 1999

literature

  • Adam T. Smith: Rendering the political aesthetic: Political legitimacy in Urartian representations of the built environment. In: Journal of Anthropological Archeology 19, 2000, pp. 131-163 ( doi: 10.1006 / jaar.1999.0348 ).
  • Tuğba Tanyeri-Erdemir: Innovation, change, continuity: considering the agency of Rusa II in the production of the imperial art and architecture of Urartu in the 7th Century BC. In: DL Peterson, LM Popova, AT Smith (Eds.): Beyond the Steppe and the sown. Proceedings of the 2002 University of Chicago Conference on Eurasian Archeology (= Colloquia Pontica. 13) Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-14610-5 , pp. 264-281.
predecessor Office successor
Argišti II. King of Urartu
approx. 680–650 BC Chr. 		Erimena
personal data
SURNAME Rusa II.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION urartean king
DATE OF BIRTH before 685 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 645 BC Chr.