EXPERTS SAY URARTIANS HAD NO DIRECT PRESENCE IN NORTHEASTERN IRAN

Mehr News Agency, Iran
Dec 6 2006

TEHRAN, Dec. 6 (MNA) — A team of Iranian and Italian archaeologists
which recently studied 27 ancient sites east of Lake Urmia said that
despite the previous theory, the Urartians never had a direct presence
in the region, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday.

The team, led jointly by Iranian archaeologist Hamid Khatib-Shahidi
and Italian archaeologist Rafael Bichone, began the surveys about
three weeks ago to demarcate the boundaries of the Urartian state
with Media and Mannai in the region.

Before the studies, many archaeologists regarded the region as the
center of Urartu and consigned it to the map of the Uratian state.

"An appropriate environment, an abundance of water, and fertile land
encouraged settlement and the establishment of local states in the
region during the Iron Age," Khatib-Shahidi said.

"It is certain that the Urartians had indirect relations with the
people of the region. Sometimes they had clashes and sometimes allied
(with each other). But the Urartians never had a direct presence or
made fortifications in the Tabriz (region) and the Maragheh plains,
i.e. north and south of Mt. Sahand," he added.

The Iron Age castles near Mt. Sahand have mostly been built of stone
without the use of mortar, he explained.

The ancient kingdom of Urartu, the biblical Ararat, flowered in the
area south of the Caucasus from the ninth century to the seventh
century BC.

Urartu, centered in the mountainous region around Lake Van, existed
from about 1000 BC, or earlier, until 585 BC, and stretched from
northern Mesopotamia through the southern Caucasus, including parts
of present-day Armenia up to Lake Sevan.

"The local governments of the region (east of Lake Urmia) were
tributary states of the Urartian state before the Medes came to
power. The extant texts from the Assyrians, particularly Sargon II,
refer to this fact," Khatib-Shahidi noted.

The team has also identified remnants of some fortifications believed
to date back to the Chalcolithic period (7000?-3500? BC).

"The inhabitants of the period built their castles on heights, but
we have not yet been able to determine why they chose to settle on
the heights rather than the plains," Khatib-Shahidi said.

If it is proven that the remnants definitely belong to the Chalcolithic
period, the fortifications will surely be among the oldest and last
remaining very ancient defensive structures in the Middle East,
he explained.

The team has also discovered shards dating back to the Achaemenid era.