Ancient Urartian inscription disappears in Iran

IranMania News, Iran
July 26, 2006

LONDON, July 26 (IranMania) – An inscription of Urartian king Ishpuini
(circa 830-810 BC) has disappeared from Baraghaneh Mountain, near
Bukan in West Azarbaijan Province, the Persian service of CHN reported.

A team of experts from the Language and Dialect Research Center of
the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization studying in the region
recently discovered that the inscription was not in its place.

The director of the Cultural Heritage Guards of the province said
that he had not been informed about the incident.

"The research center dispatched a group in order to film the position
of the inscription," research center director Rasul Bashshash said.

"The inscription had been discovered by a team of mountain climbers
in 1997, but the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization was only
informed about it in 2005," he explained.

The inscription had been written in cuneiform.

Ishpuini was the son of Sarduri I (circa 840-830 BC). Only a few
inscriptions about his reign remain in the ancient Urartian capital
Tushpa (Turushpa), modern Van in Turkey.

Urartu was an ancient country of Southwest Asia centered in the
mountainous region southeast of the Black Sea and southwest of the
Caspian Sea.

Today the region is divided among Armenia, eastern Turkey, and
northwestern Iran.

Mentioned in Assyrian sources from the early 13th century BC, Urartu
enjoyed considerable political power in the Middle East in the 9th
and 8th centuries BC. The Urartians were succeeded in the area in
the 6th century BC by the Armenians.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress