ABSTRACT
The Assyrian king, Shalmaneser I (1276-1257 BC) refers to ‘Uruatri’ as one of the Nairi kingdoms he overran during his campaign in the thirteenth century. The fact that he mentions Urartu to the exclusion of any other of the Nairi states must be a measure of its relative importance. Urartu, then, must have been in existence, at least as a small state, yet powerful enough to cause Assyria some trouble, in the fourteenth century BC, and long before that time, as an infant principality growing to maturity. The Babylonian chroniclers in the sixteenth century BC, refer to the Armenian highlands as Urhdu (Urardhu). However, it is not until the reign of Shalmaneser III in the ninth century that the name of an Urartian king, ‘Aramu’, is recorded. During that period, no less than four centuries, the political character of the country had changed, for the powerful Urarto-Hurrian princes ruling the regions around Lake Van and the western side of Lake Urmia since the Late Bronze Age, had united the Nairi chieftainships into a federation under their leadership.
