Urartu and Van

Today we visited two sites associated with ancient Urartu. The Urartuians were a highly creative civilization that prospered in the area of modern northeastern Turkey from the ninth to the sixth century BC. They gave their name to Mount Ararat which is a Hebrew corruption of Urartu. The Urartuians may be linked to the Old Testament in other ways as well. They were wine producers and drinkers, rare in the ancient Middle East, which perhaps explains the origins of the story of Noah's drunkenness. Scholars also suggest that the well-irrigated lands of Urartu could be a source for the story of the the Garden of Eden. Yet, before an expedition of the French Oriental Society to the area in 1817 they were unknown to scholars. Knowledge came slowly and dangerously as early expeditions to the area were attacked and archaelogists killed. The two world wars further slowed down progress but by the 1950's a clear picture of ancient Urartu imerged. Toprakkale and Tuspa are typical Urartuian sites where well-constructed fortifications, palaces, food storage and temples were built on spine shaped hills a hundred feet or more above well-watered farmlands. The capital, Tuspa, now broods over the modern city of Van. My companions chose to stay at the bottom and I set off with our guide, Zafer. The climb was difficult but for me the anticipation of ancient ruins is always highly motivating. Ruined cities although often the sites of bloody sieges and destruction are stimulating places. Typical of Urartu sites, Tuspa was destroyed in the second half of the seventh century by either the Medes or Sythcians. Dry and barren, the ruins become archaeological exercises in analysis and guess work.  Looking at them is a bit like studying a skeleton in anatomy class. One tries to figure out what went where and what was part of what. 

 

When we reached the summit of this site, however, we were confronted by an unexpected and desturbing vision. We looked down on the physical evidence of one of the twentieth century's countless little-remembered atrocities. Sources for what happened are notably unclear but apparentlly, at the time of the First World War, the old city of Van had a large and active Armenian population that was a thorn in the side of the Ottomans. Caught in the middle of a bloody campaign against the Russians, Van was destroyed by the Ottomans to keep it from falling into enemy hands. To use the anatomy metaphor again, this time the flesh was not yet off the bones. Where the city once stood, now a vast and utterly desolate space of ruined streets and buildings pockmarked by artillery bombardment scarred the earth.  A number of mosques could be identified in the rubble but little else. Ninety six years had covered the obliteration of old Van with dry grass, scrub and dirt but one could still sense the horror of the people who once lived here.  The sanitization of suffering by centuries of history had not yet made this site available for comfortable academic exercise.