Erebuni Fortress (Armenian Էրեբունի Բերդ)

Erebuni Fortress is one of the main and most interesting sights of Yerevan; a monument of ancient history. Forbes magazine included the settlement in the list of “9 most ancient fortresses of the world.”

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    Bloody Fortress

    Erebuni Fortress is located on a hill with the poetic name Arin-Berd, which means “Bloody Fortress”. Despite the fact that the history of this land is full of bloody tragedies, this time the name is not connected with any bloodshed. It’s just that a huge number of beautiful poppies have always grown on this hill, and the year they bloom, it seems that the whole hill is drenched in blood.

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    History

    It was on this hill that the ancient city of the Urartu state, Erebuni, was located. The city was built in 782 BC by King Agrishti I, and was a strategic defense point in the Ararat Valley. The inhabitants of Urartu built an artificial irrigation system in the valley, a skill they mastered to perfection, and turned this place into a blooming garden. During its heyday Urartu was one of the most powerful states in Asia.

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    For six whole centuries, Erebuni remained the only city in the Ararat Valley. But then Agrishti I built another large city – Argishtikhinili, which already fulfilled not so much military tasks as economic ones.

    Erebuni was the only city in the Ararat Valley.

    There is a clear consonance between the names Erebuni and Yerevan, so many scientists tend to believe that Erebuni is the ancient Yerevan. The hypothesis is not without truth – it is known for sure that people lived here and that they called their city almost the same way as the capital of Armenia is called now.

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    In the 6th century BC the state of Urartu ceased to exist, but the city continued to live already as an early Armenian city. This is evidenced by numerous archaeological finds, which can now be seen in the museum.

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    Exploring Erebuni

    Arin-Berd Hill first attracted the attention of scientists in 1894, when Russian scientist A. A. Ivanovsky purchased a stone with Urartian cuneiform inscription from a resident of the neighboring village of Cholmakchi (now the Old Nork district of Yerevan). A local resident, Papak Ter-Avetisov, claimed to have found it in 1879 on the Arin-Berd hill.

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    A drawing and rough translation of the inscription was soon published by M. V. Nikolsky. The inscription on the stone reported that on this place the Urartian king Argishti I built a granary “with a capacity of 10,100 kapi”. However, for a long period of time the hill remained unattended by archaeologists and only in 1947 the archaeological expedition led by B. B. Piotrovsky, which was engaged in excavations of Karmir-Blur in Yerevan, conducted reconnaissance works on the hill. In 1950, the same archaeological expedition began systematic archaeological excavations on the hill.

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    City structure

    The city of Erebuni consisted of a citadel located on top of Arin-Berd hill, as well as city quarters located at the foot of the hill. The total area of the city’s territory was 200 hectares.

    In addition, archaeologists found remains of Urartian pottery on the tops of two neighboring small hills, so it is possible that their tops were also part of the ancient city. Unfortunately, by the middle of the XX century the possible area of the city quarters was included in the suburbs of Yerevan and intensively built up, and therefore poorly preserved for archaeologists. At the same time, the researchers note that unlike other Urartian cities of Transcaucasia (Teishebaini, Argishtikhinili), the Erebuni fortress was not designed for close integration with urban buildings, which is probably due to its original military purpose.

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    Scholars believe that the location of Erebuni was due to purely military-strategic considerations: the Ararat Valley and most of the roads in the region are clearly visible from the Arin-Berd hill.

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    Design of the fortress

    The Erebuni fortress was triangular in shape and occupied the top of Arin-Berd hill, which was about 65 meters high. During the construction of the fortress, the top of the hill was artificially leveled. The total area of the citadel was about 8 hectares.

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    The foundation of the fortress was built of basalt blocks stacked on the leveled rock that forms the base of the hill. The only access to the fortress was at its southeastern part, the other slopes of Arin-Berd being too steep. Here was the main gate of the fortress, in the foundations of which in 1958 was discovered an inscription of Argishti I on the foundation of Erebuni.

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    Interior of the fortress

    The palace part of the fortress stands out, located to the left of the main gate. The Erebuni Palace was located on the southwestern side of the fortress (overlooking Mount Ararat) and was probably used regularly by the Urartu kings. On the territory of the palace part there was a temple of “Susi”, a peristyle courtyard, economic premises, which included two wine storerooms filled with karas.

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    To the right of the main gate was the inner courtyard of the fortress measuring 14×17 meters and adjoining it was the temple of the god Haldi. The temple included a colonnade and a multi-level tower-type room resembling a small ziggurat. The other sections of the fortress housed granaries, other economic premises, as well as dwellings of the military garrison guarding the fortress. As in other Urartian cities, there were several wine storerooms in Erebuni, the largest of which was 13×38 meters in size and could hold 100 wine carafes. The total capacity of Erebuni’s wine storerooms was variously estimated at 750 to 1750 liters.

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    In the Achaemenid period, the temple of “Susi” and the temple of the god Khaldi were rebuilt into Persian structures: the “Temple of Fire” and “Apadanu” respectively, named so by Erebuni archaeologists for their similarity to the Persian structures of the same name in Susa and Persepolis.

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    Architecture of the fortress

    The outer fortress wall consisted of a 2-meter-high plinth made of basalt stones (sometimes tufa was also used as foundation stones) and a wall made of raw brick about 7 meters high. The fortress wall was reinforced every 8 meters with buttresses of five-meter width. In some places the total height of the walls reached 12 meters. Clay mortar was used to bind stones and raw brick. Around the fortress walls on the outer side was made a pavement, further strengthening the foundations and allowing guards to make rounds of the fortress.

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    The foundations of the walls at the base did not have an extension, as in later Urartian buildings, such as in Teishebaini. The bricks were made of clay with the addition (for strength) of finely chopped straw, similar to other Urartian and Mesopotamian structures. The brickwork was carefully dressed and bricks of two sizes were used: rectangular 32.3×47.4×12.5 cm and square 47.4×47.4×12.5 cm. Clay mortar was used for the masonry. The walls were plastered with clay with an admixture of finely chopped straw.

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    The floor in most of the rooms was laid on a rocky base leveled with a screed of clay mass 8-9 cm thick. A layer of bricks was laid on top of the screed, on top of which in many rooms a layer of wood was laid, resembling modern parquet. The ceilings were mainly made of wood, only in some cases arches made of bricks were used.

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    The lower part of the interior of the fortress was also made of a mixture of basalt and tuff stones, while the upper part was made of raw brick. Archaeological excavations have established that thick wooden beams were used as door beams, the doors were wooden and massive 12 cm thick, the roof consisted of wooden beams interlaced with reeds.

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    Architecture of temples

    The architecture of the temples of the god Khaldi and the temple of “Susi” in Erebuni differs from the architecture of the citadel and is remarkable in its own way.

    Temple of the god Khaldi

    The Temple of the god Haldi in Erebuni is notable for being the largest at least partially preserved Urartian temple building. The temple of the god Haldi was founded by Argishti I, as evidenced by a partially preserved cuneiform tablet discovered in 1968.

    The temple consisted of four parts: a utility room 7.2 × 7.2 m, a large hall 7.2 × 37.0 m, a square tower with a staircase and a peristyle U-shaped courtyard. The floor of the great hall, unlike the other rooms, was made of wooden planks resembling parquet.

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    The peristyle courtyard of the temple is a unique structure for Urartian architecture, although typical for the architecture of other ancient Eastern cultures. The roof of the courtyard was supported by 12 columns, under the floor, paved with small cobblestones, a system of sewage drainage was arranged. The tower with a staircase remotely resembled a small Mesopotamian ziggurat, the whole temple was oriented diagonally to the sides of the world, which is also consistent with Mesopotamian tradition. The walls of the temple were painted with wall drawings, mostly on a blue background.

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    During the Achaemenid period, half of the temple to the god Haldi was used for household purposes, while the other half became part of a large apadana.

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    Architecture of Susi Temple

    Susi Temple is a rectangular room with internal dimensions of 5.05 × 8.08 m, external dimensions of 10.00 × 13.45 m, with an area of 40 square meters, and was obviously intended for only a small number of visitors.

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    The temple was arranged strictly diagonally to the sides of the world, which is characteristic of Mesopotamian temples. In the depth of the room was placed the altar. The temple was illuminated through the upper aperture, which was also used to divert smoke from the sacrificial fire. The inner walls of the temple were decorated with wall paintings.

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    There was one doorway in the temple, on both sides of which cuneiform inscriptions of King Argishti I about the laying of the structure were left. The foundation of the temple is made of larger and more carefully hewn blocks than other foundations of Erebuni, which architecturally brings it closer to Urartian fortresses on the northern shore of Lake Van. In this regard, scholars suggest that the temple may have been built with the help of the non-Urartian population of Erebuni (or, more likely, with the help of immigrants from the country of Hati, or with the participation of the local population of the country of “Aza”). During the Achaemenid period, the temple was also rebuilt into a Persian temple.

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    Monumental paintings

    Apparently, due to the fact that the Urartians left Erebuni without a fight, it was in this city that the monumental interior wall paintings were best preserved, traces of which have been found by archaeologists in almost all Urartian cities. The first paintings were discovered in the first year of excavations, in 1950, in the temple of the god Haldi. After that, archaeologists who investigated Erebuni did a lot of work to preserve the fallen pieces of walls and plaster with fragments of paintings and to conserve them.

    Urartian technology of coloring has preserved the bright range of colors of wall paintings to our days. The surviving original fragments of the murals are kept in the museums of Armenia, mainly in the Historical Museum of Armenia. Numerous copies and reconstructions of these murals are also exhibited in the Erebuni Museum, in the ruins of Erebuni itself, and in other museums.

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    Tourists

    All archaeological work at the hilltop fortress of Erebuni is currently mothballed. Many objects of the fortress, including large sections of wall foundations, temple foundations are partially restored. Some elements of the temple of the god Khaldi and the economic premises of the fortress, where sections of brickwork are best preserved, have been fragmentarily restored and partially reconstructed to demonstrate to visitors the principle of their construction in Urartian times.

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    At the foot of the northwestern part of the hill, the Erebuni Museum was opened in 1968, where finds from Erebuni proper and from neighboring Teishebaini were collected, with the originals of some of the most valuable objects of material culture from both cities replaced by copies, and the objects themselves are in the Historical Museum of Armenia or in its storerooms.

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    On the opposite slope of the hill, where the city buildings were located in Urartian times, archaeological excavations financed by the Soros Foundation resumed in 2002, with the participation of Armenian and Western archaeologists.

    The word “Erebouk” was used to describe the site of the city.

    The word “Erebuni” is popular in modern Armenia and is often used in the names of commercial structures and trademarks. One of Yerevan’s districts is named “Erebuni”, and one of Yerevan’s airports is named the same way.

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    Address:

    Armenia, Yerevan, Arin-Berd Hill

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    Opening hours:

    Sat-Sat 11.00-17.00

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    Price:

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    ticket – AMD 1000, with a guided tour – AMD 3500

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