ABSTRACT
The inscriptions of Rusa II, son of Argishti, testify to the reestablishment of Urartian power. One of these, found near Melaskert, refers to the occupation of Alzi, 1 in the west. Altin Tepe, near Erzincan, was still one of Ararat’s north-western bastions. On another inscription, found at Adilcevas, on the northern side of Lake Van, Rusa claims to have invaded Phrygia and other regions west of the Euphrates, thus ensuring his control of the trade routes leading to the Mediterranean. 2 A letter from a Mannaean prince to his workmen, carrying out building operations for Rusa in Van, shows that Urartian authority again extended over the important Mannaean state. 3 At this time, the movements of the wild, horse-riding nomadic Cimmerians and Scythians had important effects upon the peoples of Anatolia, including Urartu, as well as on the Iranian peoples, and others especially Mannai, and consequently upon Assyria also. Herodotus (IV. 12) describes how the Cimmerians and Scythians crashed southwards through the Caucasus:
It appears that the Cimmerians, when they fled into Asia [through the Caucasus] to escape the Scyths, made a settlement in the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope was afterwards built. The Scyths, it is plain, pursued them, and missing their road, poured into Media. For the Cimmerians kept the line which led along the sea-shore, but the Scythians, in their pursuit held the Cascasus upon their right, thus proceeding inland and falling upon Media.
