Ancient Urartu: Who were the ancient Urartians?

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS - Urartu is first mentioned as ‘the land of Uruatri’ in an inscription of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser I (1263-1234 BC). It is there described as having eight ‘lands’. Based upon other Assyrian sources it is most likely that this ‘Uruatri’ was part of the ‘Nairi’ lands, which was a larger group of kingdoms and tribal states in the 13th - 11th centuries BC.

Urartu Wine Cellar

Many of the ‘Nairi’ lands united under the kingdom of Urartu in the centuries after that. Pressure from Assyrian conquerors probably contributed to this. Urartu came to comprise an area of approximately 200,000 square miles (520,000 km2), reaching from the river Mtkvari (Kura) in the north (in present-day Georgia), to the northern foothills of the Taurus Mountains in the south; and from the Euphrates in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east. Important archeological sites that have produced findings from Urartu include Altintepe, Toprakkale, Patnos and Cavustepe.
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