Department of Languages and cultures of the Near East and North Africa
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RUSA II AND (RE-) EMERGENCE OF THE URARTIAN KINGDOM
A. Ayvazian (University of California, Berkeley)

The Kingdom of Van, Urartu, rose out of a coalition of numerous tribes, who appear to have united against the increasing threat of Assyria. It reached the height of its power in the early 8th c. BC, with the military campaigns and programs of major construction of Menua (c.810-785) and Argishti I (c.785-760). According to the extensive study conducted by Paul Zimansky, from the time of its conception Urartu was largely a feudal society. The relationship between the "center" and "provinces" was an unstable one, causing the provinces to rebel at the first sign of trouble. The majority of extant royal inscriptions show Urartian kings constantly engaged in suppressing rebellions, thus inadvertently revealing the picture of the Kingdom as a de-centralized entity torn by internal strife.

By the late 8th c. BC, after the devastating punitive march of Sargon II through Urartian territories, the Kingdom seems to have fallen into complete disarray. Some scholars even go so far as to regard this event as the final blow to the Kingdom's troubled existence. Nevertheless, recent finds testify not only to the existence of Urartu in the 7th century, but to its re-emergence as a stronger, centralized state with a developed system of bureaucracy, a Kingdom in its true sense. These changes are ascribed to the reign of Rusa II (c.685-639?), the last well-defined Urartian king. Rusa's reforms are well-attested by the impressive and technologically novel construction of citadels and religious centers around the Kingdom's core. Furthermore, he introduces the royal seal type along with a variety of seal-types used in administration. Such forceful resurgence of Urartu at this time may be connected to the Kingdom's advantageous position in relation to the commercial routes, and its role as an intermediary in the trade between Elam and the west.