Urartu was a network of regions separated by mountains. This aspect has led to its designation as a ‘continental archipelago’. Its mountains were covered by forests (far more than today, after millennia of deforestation) and largely uninhabited. The majority of the population was therefore concentrated in the valleys and lakes, at an altitude of 1000/1500 metres. Communications between basins were difficult and had to be interrupted during the winter. In the Pre-Urartian period, the area had low population levels, which significantly rose and peaked in the eighth and seventh centuries bc. However, on an archaeological level, this development is only partially ‘invisible’, since a large portion of the population was made of transhu-mant farmers and farmers living in small villages. The Assyrian sources distinguished three types of Urartian settlements: ‘fortified cities’, ‘fortresses’ and the ‘neighbouring villages’. The first group was made of cities that in the Iron Age, and especially in Urartu, were particularly small. In fact, the 20 hectares of Bastam constituted the maximum size for an Urartian city, which could only be surpassed by the capital (Tushpa). Archaeological surveys have located several Urartian fortresses, providing their plans and sizes. These were imposing fortresses and effective strongholds, but mainly hosted garrisons. Therefore, the majority of the population lived in unfortified villages and seasonal camps.
It appears that the Urartian state made a great effort to provide its territory with fortified strongholds, meant to defend strategic access points, control agro-pastoral lands, and protect the accumulated resources. This effort is a representation of the building aspect of the Urartian state from its formative process to its hegemony, and its defence from Assyrian and then Scythian attacks. The ‘royal cities’, capitals of the Urartian cantons, had ‘palaces’, where the products accumulated through internal taxation and war booties were stored. There were warehouses for foodstuffs, such as the imposing ones found intact at Karmir Blur, which have allowed an estimation of the amount of food stored. In addition to that, there were armouries for chariots and weapons, and treasuries, mainly located in temples. In this regard, Sargon’s description of his sack of the temple of Haldi at Musasir provides the most informative and impressive indications of the wealth stored in Urartian temples.
At the centre of the Urartian state there was the king, whose titles were of Assyrian inspiration (‘mighty king’; ‘great king’; ‘king of Nairi’ in Assyrian and ‘of Biaini’ in Urartian; ‘king of kings’; ‘king of the lands’; and so on). He was supported by a series of functionaries both in the centre and the periphery of the kingdom. The king’s celebrative repertoire (also Assyrian-inspired) was made of votive and annalistic inscriptions placed in emblematic locations. At times, these inscriptions were even left outside palaces or cities, as steles left in mountain passes, rock reliefs near river crossings and so on. Nonetheless, the means and stages that led to this centralisation of power, which started from a number of small ‘nations’ forming the constitutive elements of the Urartian state, remain largely unknown.
The centralisation of power in Urartu must have been due to two essential elements: the army and the exploitation of ‘strategic’ resources. Urartu must have required a larger standing army to guard the numerous fortresses and fortified cities, and to ensure a continuous defence against foreign invaders and local raiders. Due to the nature of Urartu’s territory, invaders and raiders were a constant threat. Judging from the Urartian annals, during campaigns the Urartian army followed the common division into chariotry, cavalry and infantry. Despite being an integral part of Urartian iconography, chariots were few in number and difficult to use in a largely mountainous territory. It appears that the Urartian army normally relied on around a hundred chariots, a few thousands horsemen and around 20,000 soldiers. The Urartian army, then, was certainly adequate for the local demographic resources, but far from the size of the Assyrian army. Therefore, the latter could only be stopped through the inaccessibility of the Urartian territory and fortresses.
An influx of deportees and animals, taken during the Urartian campaigns against the small neighbouring states, refilled the local supplies through planned redistributions and allocations. The availability of ‘strategic’ resources explains the wealth of Iron Age Urartu. These resources were mainly metals and horses, as well as timber for buildings. The latter was less desired by foreign states, due to the lack of rivers able to carry timber to the south. Copper and iron, the two main metals of the time, were available in a number of areas controlled by Urartu, from eastern Anatolia to the south Caucasus. Afghan tin reached the Near East through Iran, and control over it was one of the reasons for the rivalry between Urartu and Assyria.
It is possible that metals were a royal monopoly, while horses were a different case. The latter were bred near the river basins of the Armenian highlands, and especially near Lake Urmia and east of it (Mannaeans). Horse breeding was largely left in the hands of pastoral groups, but the king had a right to request them. This royal right was another reason for disputes between Urartians and Assyrians. It would be inherited by the Median kings, Achaemenid emperors and Hellenistic rulers. Therefore, Urartu had an advantage over Assyria, namely, of having in its own land the necessary resources for its military and building interventions. The Assyrian empire gathered these resources with great difficulty. From a long-term perspective, however, the formation of the Urartian state was stimulated by this Assyrian interest in Armenian resources. Therefore, Urartu partly developed imitating Assyria, and partly relied on a different balance of resources (that is, less workforce and more raw materials).
The demographic growth of Urartu was partly due to animal farming, which provided sheep, goats, and cattle alongside the ‘strategic’ breeding of horses. It was also partly due to agricultural developments. The latter mainly involved the construction of irrigation systems, which were different (yet not less important) to the ones developed in the Mesopotamia Alluvial Plain from as early as the proto-historic age. Irrigation in the highlands is a development typical of the Iron Age, and consists of the deviation and artificial channelling of rivers, directed towards wider stretches of arable land. These were hydraulic interventions adapted to the Urartian mountainous territory. Certain Neo-Assyrian building interventions were partly the result of these same experiences.
A particular system, which would eventually spread in Iran but is first attested in Urartu, is that of the qanat. The latter was a subterranean tunnel connected to the surface through vertical wells (built for the construction of the tunnel itself and for aeration). This system allowed the delivery of water over long distances, avoiding evaporation, regardless of the varying inclination of the surface. Springs, qanat, surface canals and aqueducts formed a remarkably efficient landscape, but still relatively vulnerable. to these infrastructures, the area experienced significant agricultural development. The latter was characterised by the intensive cultivation of crops and trees (especially vines), with a particular attention for royal or even temple supplies (Figure 30.3). Sargon’s account of his eighth campaign shows the king’s admiration for Urartian agriculture, as well as its fortresses and the wealth of its treasuries.
Urartian metalwork is well documented in the archaeological evidence, not so much in terms of iron, which was a more practical and constantly reused metal, but in terms of bronze, which presents several characteristic features of Urartian craftsmanship (Figure 30.4). Large cauldrons (with handles in the form of ‘sirens’) and tripods were valuable objects, often used as assets to facilitate the circulation of wealth. Some of them ‘emigrated’ to Assyria, in the form of tributes, or to Greek sanctuaries as votive offerings. Bronze was also used in the decoration of valuable furniture, such as in the case of the renowned throne of Toprakkale. Moreover, a large portion of Urartian weaponry was still made out of bronze, such as shields, helmets, belts and harnesses decorated with war and hunting scenes, rows of soldiers and chariots, fortresses, mythical animals, or divine symbols. These valuable items also spread alongside similar Neo-Hittite and Phrygian objects through trade, gift exchange, tributes and plunders.
Architecture is another sector showing Urartu’s great originality, despite its reuse of Mitannian, Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian elements. Fortresses display the clever exploitation of their difficult location, establishing a sort of continuity between rocks and artificial constructions. This aspect is particularly visible in the fortress of Van. Even individual buildings display unique characteristics, such as the great columned halls in palaces, or the Urartian tower-temples, two elements that would be borrowed in Median and Persian architecture. Therefore, despite owing much to Assyria and Syria, Urartian art still managed to develop its own individual traits, rooted in the cultural and geographic features of the area. Moreover, Urartu became in turn a centre for the diffusion of iconographies and styles towards Iran and Greece.
World History
