Iron Age · c. 810–786 BC · Körzüt Fortress, Muradiye, Van province, Turkey
Urartian cuneiform inscriptions found in eastern Turkey record King Minua's conquest
Three basalt slabs from a temple at Körzüt Fortress near Lake Van describe Minua taking Luḫiuni, a royal city he claims no one had conquered before.
Peer-reviewed paper
Körzüt Fortress, Muradiye, Turkey Three cuneiform inscriptions found at Körzüt Fortress in eastern Turkey record a military campaign by King Minua of Urartu. Minua ruled around 810–786 BC. In the texts, he claims to have captured Luḫiuni, the royal city of a tribal union called Erkua. He states that no one had taken it before him.
The basalt slabs were found in 2023 during rescue excavations. They were set in the walls of a temple to the god Haldi inside the fortress. Körzüt overlooks the Muradiye Plain in the Lake Van Basin.
The Van Museum Directorate carried out the excavation. Sabahattin Erdoğan of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University and Anastasiia Süğlüm of Istanbul University have now read and translated the inscriptions. They published their study in the journal Anadolu Araştırmaları / Anatolian Research.
Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom centred on the Lake Van Basin. Its capital was Ṭušpa, the modern city of Van. At its height, Urartu competed with Assyria for power in the region. Minua, son of Išpuini, was one of its most powerful kings.
The texts invoke Haldi and describe the capture of Luḫiuni
The texts are written in classical Urartian cuneiform. This is the wedge-shaped script the Urartians adapted from Mesopotamia. The slabs are so well preserved that Erdoğan and Süğlüm could read them clearly.
The two researchers filled in damaged passages by comparing them with parallel texts from other Urartian sites. The inscription opens with a standard appeal to divine authority:
With the power of Haldi, Minua, son of Išpuini, says…
Inscription of King Minua, as translated by Sabahattin Erdoğan and Anastasiia Süğlüm
According to the two authors, formulas of this kind were essential components of Urartian state ideology. That ideology held that the gods granted military success and the right to rule directly. Haldi was the chief god of the Urartian pantheon and the protector of kingship.
The main passage describes the campaign against Erkua. Minua's troops took men, women, horses, cattle and sheep from Luḫiuni. They carried them back to Ṭušpa.
I conquered Luḫiuni, a city which no one else had conquered before.
Inscription of King Minua, as translated by Sabahattin Erdoğan and Anastasiia Süğlüm
Temple plan, scattered fragments and a new date for the fortress
The temple where the slabs were found follows the square plan typical of Urartian religious buildings. A narrow entrance corridor leads into a central cella built directly on the bedrock. Figures in the paper label two of the slabs as coming from the north-east tower and one from the north-west tower.
The temple and its royal inscriptions suggest that Körzüt was a religious and administrative centre as well as a military stronghold.
The find may also settle where a group of older inscription fragments came from. Pieces of Urartian texts have turned up in villages near Körzüt. Scholars have argued for decades about their origin. The new slabs suggest that many of them once stood at the fortress and were moved over the centuries.
The researchers compared language, formulas and place names. On that basis, they think the Körzüt texts belong to a larger ceremonial inscription commissioned by Minua. This allows missing sections to be reconstructed and earlier misreadings to be corrected. It also allows new Urartian words to be identified.
The inscriptions also give the fortress a firmer date. Earlier theories placed its construction in the earliest phase of Urartian architecture. Minua's texts now date the fortress and its temple to the late 9th century BC. That is either Minua's own reign or the period when he ruled jointly with his father Išpuini.
Körzüt sits on ancient routes linking the Lake Van Basin with the Aras River valley and Iran. It overlooks one of the region's most productive plains.
Archaeological evidence places the fortress within Urartu's so-called chain defence system. This was a network of fortresses built to secure the kingdom's northern frontier.
Sources
- 2,800-Year-Old Urartian Inscriptions Found in Türkiye Describe the Capture of an Unconquered City (Arkeonews)
Paper: Erdoğan, S., & Süğlüm, A. (2025). Recently discovered Urartian cuneiform inscriptions in the temple of the Körzüt fortress. Anadolu Araştırmaları / Anatolian Research, 31, 145–169. https://doi.org/10.26650/anar.2024.31.1593151
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