Look what is going on.
First it was the Hittites, I mean HitTurks.
The Turkish word for culture is "kultur", kulTurk?
David O’Byrne’s article
“Istanbul exhibit focuses on lost empire of Urartu” (Nov. 7)
It saddens me deeply that Turkey’s current government refuses, like all the previous ones, to let go of their revisionist history approach. O’Byrne is a serious reporter it should not have been hard for him to cross north to Armenia and obtain a more accurate account of Urartu and its real history. With this article, O’Byrne might as well be on the Turkish government’s payroll.
Hagop Toroyan
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Istanbul exhibit focuses on lost empire of Urartu
http://f25.parsimony...sages/12268.htm
Geschrieben von / Written by News am 07. November 2003 12:32:22:
Civilization spanned eastern Turkey, Caucasus, northern Iran
David O’Byrne
Special to The Daily Star
ISTANBUL: It’s a common complaint from even educated Turks, that their country has played home to so many civilizations that it’s all but impossible to have more than a passing knowledge of even the most significant ones.
As a fault though it’s easily forgiven, after all some of these civilizations were themselves lost from the record for
millennia, and still remain almost unknown outside the world of archaeology.
Take for example, the Urartu civilization which controlled much of eastern Turkey, the Caucasus and northern Iran between the 6th and 9th centuries BC.
Despite sharing the roots of its name with biblical mount Ararat which lay with its boundaries, and despite rating a mention themselves in the Old Testament as the kingdom of Urartu, the Urartians were unknown to ancient historians who wrote about their near neighbors and rivals the Assyrians, and to who they ascribed responsibility for the many Urartian buildings still existing.
Indeed it wasn’t until the late 19th century when strange artifacts from a previously unknown culture began appearing on western antiquities markets that western archaeologists realized the existence of Urartu.
Now that lengthy absence from the historical record is being addressed by a fascinating new exhibition jointly organized by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Yapi Kredi Bank at the Vedat Tor Cultural Center on Istanbul’s main Istiklal Street.
Taking as its title “Urartu: War and Aesthetics” the exhibition aims to put Urartu firmly back on the map, detailing the lost empire’s comparatively short history and attempting to offer an insight into Urartian life and beliefs.
With no references in later historical accounts, what is known of Urartian history comes solely from archaeological sources, largely from the deciphering of the bizarre and beautiful cuneiform script consisting entirely of triangular figures which the Urartians borrowed from their Assyr-
ian neighbors.
The Urartian language itself took several generations to decipher and is now believed to be a distant ancestor of exist-
ing Caucasian languages such as Chechen.
A basalt stele inscribed in Urartu cuneiform is displayed in the exhibition, alongside a translation of its text a report of a battle victory.
The picture that has emerged is one a society that followed a semi-nomadic lifestyle tending flocks of sheep and goats on the high plains of eastern Anatolia, yet confusingly equally at home with the traditions of the settled urban lifestyle.
Aside from constructing huge fortified settlements to withstand attack from the Assyrians to the east, with whom they were in a near constant state of war the Urartians were also exemplary craftsmen developing previously unseen levels of skill both metal working and ceramics.
At the same time they developed a highly sophisticated agricultural tradition cultivating vegetables, fruit orchards and vineyards, and constructing vast irrigation canals some of which are still in use today.
The Urartian capital and main population center which they knew as Tushpa, was the enormous citadel which still stands overlooking the city of Van, on the shores of lake Van in eastern Turkey.
Plans and photographs of Tushpa many of them taken by Turkey’s former Magnum photographer Ara Guler are included in both the main Urartu exhibition, and an ancillary display mounted on panels installed outside on Istiklal street.
But despite their skills
as builders the Urartian’s were nomads with the importance
of their flocks attested to
in both their religious and burial practices.
Unlike their neighbors who were still worshipping multiple gods the Urartians followed a single God who they knew
as “Haldi.”
In his honor they constructed some of the most bizarre monuments to be found anywhere in Turkey blind doorways carved into south facing rock faces, away from their main settlements but apparently on routes used during the movement of their flocks.
A typical Urartian burial chamber is reproduced in the exhibition, with visitors viewing from above the carefully laid out skeleton and burial goods which include the skeleton of a dog believed to be a direct ancestor of the ferocious native sheep dogs still used to guard flocks in eastern Turkey.
The bulk of the exhibition however consists of exhibits of artifacts demonstrating the skills the nomadic Urartians developed in pottery and metalworking both for everyday life and for the arduous business of war.
Domestic wares on show range from simple red clay bowls and jugs tastefully decorated with geometric patterns to finely crafted elaborate items of jewelry.
Most unusual by far is the display of bronze brooches whose main elements are shaped like human arms.
No less impressive are the displays of Urartian weapons armor and horse tackle.
Dependent on horses for both tending their flocks and waging war, the Urartians exercised control over their mounts using beautifully wrought jointed bronze bits and blinkers, and adorned their harnesses with unusual cast bronze bells, bearing an inscription indicating the name of the Urartian king in power when they were cast.
Being in a state of near constant war with their Assyrian neighbors meant that the production of weapons and armor was an important Urartian industry which they were able to develop to the extent that their wrought iron swords and pointed bronze helmets with nose and cheek guards served as the prototypes for those used by subsequent empires including both the Greeks and the Romans.
But however advanced their skills, they were not enough to save the Urartians from conquest by the combined forces of the Scythians. Medes and Babylonians who in 612BC conquered the Urartians arch enemies the Assyrians.
Over the following century they were then able to pick off the Urartian fortified cities weakening the empire to the point of final collapse an event which as with most of Urartian history, went unrecorded and whose exact date is still unknown.
http://www.dailystar.../07_11_03_c.asp
