ABSTRACT
In the Urartian culture bronze was used for a variety of purposes, both in its cast and hammered forms. For the identification of bronzes as Urartian, the inscriptions on them are an important starting-point. The inscriptions are more important than the find-spots, first because bronzes are easily transportable and were widely distributed through trade, dedication, gift, tribute or plunder, and secondly because some, particularly older, provenances are unreliable. Urartian toreutik spread out to the north and north-west, not in works of official, rather rigid art, but works that were themselves open to foreign influences and to a freer interpretation. Apart from those bronzes produced in royal, that is, official, workshops in the “court style”, there are many bronzes made in a recognizable Urartian style, which exhibit greater freedom, both in the depiction of individual figures, as well as in the composition of the scene.
