Yoncatepe
Coordinates: 38 ° 26 '9.8 " N , 43 ° 27' 2.3" E
Yoncatepe (English: clover hill ) is a Urartean settlement hill in the province of Van in eastern Turkey. It has been excavated since 1997 under the direction of Oktay Belli from the University of Istanbul .
Yoncatepe is 11 km southeast of the east bank of Lake Van at an altitude of 2051 m. The mountains Erek Dağı (3200 m) and Varak Dağı (2800 m) lie on the eastern edge of the plain.
The palace is located in the highest part of the settlement and is about 2600 m 2 in size. The basement consisted of stone blocks, the upper floor of adobe bricks. The palace was destroyed by a catastrophic fire, usually blamed on the Scythians , when three-winged arrowheads were found on the slope of the Acropolis .
Storage rooms with pithoi and a kitchen with stoves were excavated in the palace . To the north of the palace was a flat settlement. A cemetery has also been identified.
The Urartian name of the fortress is unknown. From the church of Varak (Yedikilise) in the nearby village of Bakraçlı , however, there is an inscription by King Menua (810-786 BC)
literature
- Emel Oybak Dönmez / Oktay Belli, Urartian Plant Cultivation at Yoncatepe (Van), Eastern Turkey . Economic Botany 61/3, 290-298.