Urartu Empire: Origin imprimir
 
The inscriptions of the king Salmanasar I of Assyria (1280 - 1261 before this Era) already mentioned the campaigns against the nations that lived in the region of Uruatri, south of Lake Van. “At the beginning of my divine sovereign, the Uruatri territories revealed against me...” says Salmanasar I.
This is the first known mention about the Urartu people and it indicates that during the 13th century before this Era, they were not centralized yet in one kingdom, but they lived in separated social units with their tribal chiefs.
The son of Salmanasar, Tukulti-Ninurta I (1261 – 1218 before this Era) also battled against the peoples of the region of Van, to whom at his time called “peoples of Nairi”.
Many waves of Indo-Aryans peoples established in the region of Van. Among them were the Hittites (Aryans who emigrated to the east during the collapse of their empire, due to the incursions of the called sea peoples), the Frigians-Mushkis (the Mushkis are a branch of the Frigians, also Aryans, who came in through the Dardalenos, invading Anatolia and establishing in Van), the Hurrians (from the collapsed kingdom of Mitanni) and the Urartians (Aryan warrior race, which penetrated in the region of Anatolia from Europe).
This last people was the one which take care of the unification of the kingdom during the 9th century before this Era, because it made prevail its powerful over the others, giving the kingdom the name of Urartu.
About year 1000 (before this Era) new political and social forces came up from the princedoms and clans which had constituted the Nairi-Urartu federations. The need to corporately organize a resistance against the Assyrian aggression was in connection with the tendency to a monarchy– imperial ideological line from the great kings of the Mesopotamia, and it was conducting gradually to the raise, in the region of Van, of a singular caste of rulers.
These dynasties formed a great kingdom by unifying all the peoples that surrounded the lake Van (the Biaini country, as the Urartians called it) and they built its capital Tushpa (current city of Van) at the east banks of lake Van. The Kingdom was delimited by the Caucasian to the north, the Armenian Taurus to the south, the Urmia lake to the east and the Euphrates to the west. Its domains extended through West Anatolia for approximately 800 miles from east to west and 500 miles from north to south.
The creation of a strong and unified state in the months of Armenia and the West Anatolia demanded unusual qualities of vigour and determination. It is not always noted that the weather in most of the Urartian territory is more similar to the Siberian’s than the near Mesopotamia’s. The winters are long and severe, with many feet of snow for at least four months. This causes the immobility of the population and the isolation with its neighbors.
The rudeness of the climatic conditions gave the Urartians strong and resistance, which allowed them to rival with their powerful enemies from the south, who lived in the comfortable, fertile and template plains of the Mesopotamia.
The earliest political history of Urartu can also be observed in the annals of Assyria, which provide us of a dynastic and chronological database of the kingdom of Van. Taking into account the fact that Van (Tushpa) was less than 200 miles from Nineveh, capital of assyrian empire, it is remarkable that the two empires could survive for so long. It is true that they were frequently at war, but it was never possible for any of both to completely destroy the other. From the rise of Assyria as an important empire, its power was constantly defy by the wars of the Urartian people. This is the reason why the rulers of Nineveh could only aspire to be the only masters of the Middle East.
The inscriptions of King Salmanasar I of Assyria already talked about Uruatri, as we mentioned before. Two parts compose the word “Uruatri” or “Uruadri”: Uru-atri (or Ur-atri), which second part “atr” in armenian language means “fire”. The final “i” is a toponomic suffix and its first part “Uru” means “place” or “land”. Therefore, Urartu means “Lands of the Fire” or “Country of the Fire”.
The Akkadians knew them as “Uraurtu”, word composed by two repetitive parts “Ura” which means “High” and “Urtu” which also means “High”, making a clear reference to “high of the high”
The Babylonians named them as “Urashtu”, while in the Bible they are mentioned as the “kingdom of Ararat”, being this the hebrew meaning of the word Urartu.
The Greek historian Herodotus makes reference to them with the term “Alarodioi”, derived, according to studious, from the Greek term “Ariartos”.
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