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 CULTUROLOGICAL ISSUES. URARTU.  As a  result of the excavations of Urartian monuments in the territories of today’s Republic of Armenia, Turkey (Western Armenia) and northwestern Iran (Parskahayk,) enormous factual materials have been accumulated in order to reveal the characteristic features of the Urartian culture. The studies of the Armenian (H. Martirosyan, S. Yesayan, G. Tiratsyan, K. Hovhannisyan, S. Hmayakyan, H. Avetisyan), Russian (B. Piotrovsky, S. Khojash), European-American (R. Barnett, Ch. Burney, W. Kleis, S. Kroll, U. Seidel, P. Zimansky) and Turkish (A. Cilingiroglu, V. Sevin, O. Belly) archaeologists have greatly contributed to the coverage of various issues of the Urartian culture. Along with the newly found materials, new interpretations and standpoints which radically differ from the traditional ideas are being circulated. 

  These differences of worldviews have led to discord in the field of evaluation of the scientific-terminological and historical-cultural situations.  The Western and Turkish archaeologists consider the Urartian state to be an integrity without differentiating local manifestations. Whereas the completely different standpoint of the Armenian archaeologists has led to defining different subgroups in Urartian culture, which has been expressed in the concepts  ‘local’ and main ‘Urartian’, ‘elite’ and  'mass’ cultures or in the above mentioned ‘Urartu-Armenia’ contrast. What is the problem here?

   The archaeological complexes discovered as a result of the excavations of the great administrative, economic and cultural centers of the Urartian Kingdom (Karmir Blur, Arin Berd, Argishtikhinili) in the territory of Armenia were evaluated at that time within the concept of ‘the Urartian culture’.  In parallel with the accumulation of newly found materials it became obvious that the materials of the complexes, which clearly differ from the samples found in Urartian centers excavated in the territory and dating the 8th-6th  centuries B.C. were not included in the concept. 

  In order to overcome this contrast, H. Martirosyan coined the concepts of ‘local culture’ and ‘the culture of the stage of wide expansion of iron’ of indigenes. It seems that this approach was an acceptable solution and reflected the situation formed during the Urartian expansion. However, in the course of the last 3 decades a number of  new complexes were discovered, which are actually the results of interpenetration (crossing) of ‘Urartian’ and ‘local’ cultures, and it’s not possible to attribute it definitely to one of these two cultures. 

  This circumstance is especially sharp in case of the analysis of pottery samples.  Furthermore, the study of the pottery of Urartian centers gives a possibility to state that ‘the Urartian pottery’  has not been changed seriously in its technology and formation in the course of the 9th/8th centuries BC to the end of the 7th century. In contrary, the pottery found from the pre-urartian monuments and layers during this period has undergone considerable changes.

   It’s worth mentioning that if from the beginning of 8th century B.C. i. e  in the period of Rusa II’s reign, the manifestations of ‘Urartian’ and ‘local’ cultural phenomena, either isolated or combined, are visible (that means that the samples of traditional Urartian or traditional local cultural features occur together in layers or tombs), in the complexes of later period assuming later dating (Karmir Blur and monuments of the same period) there are  elements of samples of not only Urartian and local cultures, but also new types of samples formed as a result of the crossing of these two traditions. 

   As it was stated above, the most part of today’s Armenia corresponds to the states of Etiuni and Uduri-Etiuni mentioned in Urartian sources. After the Urartian conquest in the 8th century B.C. they had become one of the important parts of the Urartian state. In this sense, in the context of Urartian expansion, the Iron-age monuments of Armenia can be conditionally divided into two groups:

1. Monuments, that have been destroyed in the course of the Urartian invasion and abandoned, so they are represented only by pre-urartian materials,

2. Monuments, that have been destroyed and restored by the Urartian kings and are represented not only by pre-urartian, but also by the main Urartian layers. 

The Armenian archaeologists differentiate three main cultural situations in Armenia which existed in the period of the Urartian state. 

1. ‘Etunian’ ( Ltchashen- Metsamorian)-the native culture of the territory,

2. ‘Biaynian’(‘Vantospian’)- culture imported from the North(Van),

3. Local ‘Urartian’ culture originated in the result of the crossing of the above mentioned two situations since the first half of the 8th century B.C..

  The difference of the Armenian and foreign archaeological terminology  is that they don’t indicate any boundaries between the above mentioned local, imported and crossed cultural situations up till now (with some exception). The word ‘Urartian’ means integrity for them. However, new archaeological activities in Western Armenia show that in those parts of the Highlands a similar situation was going on, as in the territory of today’s Republic of Armenia. The further studies will by all means lead to the elimination of the terminological dissent between the Armenian and foreign Urartological schools. In this regard the archaeological cooperation of the Armenian and foreign experts is especially important, including the research of the Armenian-Italian expedition in the basin of Lake Sevan (S. Hmayakyan) and the activities of the Armenian-Austrian expedition in Kotayk region (H. Avetisyan). 

Avetisyan H., Bobokhyan A. 

Source: The archaeology of Urartu (Fortress- settlements and Complexes of Tombs), Yerevan, Yerevan State University Publishing House, 2008.