Arama

Arama was a contemporary and one of the military opponents of the Assyrian king Salmanasar III (reign of about 858-824 BC), who repeatedly mentioned Arama in his annals in connection with victorious expeditions undertaken against the Urartians . The time of the reign of Arama, as well as of the earlier periods of the history of the Urartians, is known exclusively from the Assyrian sources that have come down to us. Perhaps it was Arama in the 1st half of the 9th century BC. e. united Urartian tribes to counter the constant Assyrian threat, thereby creating an obstacle to Assyrian expansion in the Caucasus ^[1] .

The first years of his reign, Salmanasar III was forced to devote to strengthening his influence in the northern regions of the Assyrian Empire. In the first year, Salmanasar undertook a successful trip to the lands adjacent to Lake Van , inhabited by the Nairi and Urartu tribes. The key events of the campaign were the victory over the king of Nairi named Kakia, the sack of Khubushkiya and the capture of the fortified city of Suguniya , which belonged to the king of the Urartians Arama. Assyrian troops destroyed Suguniya and unhindered went to Lake Van. Aram’s troops retreated to the mountains ^[2] . In his inscription, Salmanasar III describes his invasion of the borders of Urartu as follows:

I left Khubushkia and went to Suguniya, the fortified city of Aram Urartu, besieged and captured the city, killed many of its soldiers, put down a tower of heads in front of the city and burned 14 of its neighboring settlements in the fire. I left Suguniya, went down to the sea ​​of ​​the country of Nairi , washed my weapons in the sea, made sacrifices to my gods. At this time, I made my own image and wrote down on him the praise of Ashur, the great lord, my lord, as well as the victory of my power, and set it over the sea ^[3] .

In the summer of the third year of his reign, Salmanasar III, returning from a campaign in Syria, this time invaded deep into the country of Urartu. Now, the capital of Aram, the city of Arzashkun , which was taken by the troops of Salmanasar III, looted and burned, became the key battlefield. The location of Arzashkun has not yet been established ^{[4] [5]} .

Salmanasar himself described these events:

Arzashkun, the royal city of Aram Urartu, I captured, destroyed, demolished and burned in flames. While I was in Arzashkun, Aram Urartu hoped for the power of his army, really raised his whole army and went to meet me to give battle and battle. I defeated him, beat his horsemen (?), Smashed 3000 of his soldiers with weapons, filled the wide steppe with the blood of his soldiers. I took his military equipment, royal treasures, horsemen from him, but he, for the sake of his salvation, climbed steep mountains. I ravaged the vast country of the Koutis, like the god Irre. From Arzashkun to the country of Gilzan, from the country of Gilzan to the country of Khubushkia, like Adad, I burst out over them with a storm. The bitterness of my sovereignty I let Urartu know ^[6] .

The inscription on the monolith from Tushkhan (Karh) of Salmanasar III contains a more extensive description of the campaign to Urartu:

I left Dayayeni, to Arzash, the royal city of Aram Urartu, I approached. Urart Aramu was afraid of the bitterness of my strong weapon and strong battle and left his city. He climbed the mountains of Adduri; he got up and I, I fought a strong battle in the mountains, I threw 3400 soldiers with my weapons, like Adad , I poured a cloud over them with rain, I painted them [the mountain] like wool, I captured his camp, his chariots , horsemen, horses, mules , hinnies , property and rich booty I brought from the mountains. Aram, saving his life, fled to an inaccessible mountain. In my mighty power, like a tour , I crushed his country, turned the settlements into ruins and burned it with fire. The city of Arzashka and the settlements of its okrug was captured, destroyed and burned with fire. Heaps of heads I made in front of the city gates. I dumped some [of the people] alive in heaps, and set the others around the heaps ... I went down to the sea of ​​the Nairi country, I washed the formidable weapons of Ashur at sea, made sacrifices, made an image of my Majesty and wrote down on him the praise of Ashur, the great ruler , my lord, the ways of my courage and glorious deeds ... ^[7]

Apparently, Salmanasar III attached great importance to the capture of Arzashkun, but the Assyrian inscriptions do not say anything about Salmanasar’s conquest of the country of Urartu. The army of Urartu, however, could not resist the Assyrians in an open battle and preferred to wage a guerrilla war in the mountains, forcibly leaving the fertile lowlands of the Armenian Highlands to plunder the Assyrians. In the texts of Salmanasar, Arzashkun is indicated by the ideogram “royal city”, which, according to B. B. Piotrovsky , does not mean at all that Arzashkun was the capital or, at least, the only capital of the Urartian king Aram - there were already several royal cities in Urartu (one of them could be the city of Tushpa ) ^[8] .

12 years later, in the fifteenth year of his reign, Salmanasar III undertook a new military campaign against King Urartu Aram and, according to his inscriptions on the shed in his palace, looted and burned all the settlements of Urartu from the source of the Tigris to the source of the Euphrates ^{[9] [10 ] ]} . A systematic confrontation with Assyria contributed to the development of the Urartian army, which probably began during the reign of Aram. Judging by the drawings on the bas-reliefs, the Urartian army was gradually rebuilt from the " Hittite " to the Assyrian ^[11] .

As can be seen from Assyrian sources, Aram remained king of Urartu in the fifteenth year of the reign of Salmanasar III, that is, about 845-844 BC. e. The following inscription about the campaign of Salmanasar III against Urartu refers to the 27th year of his reign (c. 832 BC ), and this time Sarduri was already named king of Urartu ^[12] .

The Armenian historical tradition, starting from the early Middle Ages historians Movses Khorenatsi (V century A.D., or, possibly, later) and Sebeos (VII century), among the Armenian monarchs of antiquity mentions Aram, a descendant of the legendary leader and eponym of Armenians Hayk , who , in turn, appears to be a descendant of Noah . The prototype of Aram from the Armenian tradition was undoubtedly the Urartian king Aram, by the similarity of not only names, but also deeds - in particular, Aram is known for his conquests and wars with Assyria ^{[13] [14]} .

• Bernie C. , Lang D. M. The Ancient Caucasus. From the prehistoric settlements of Anatolia to the Christian kingdoms of the early Middle Ages / Transl. from English L. A. Igorevsky. - M: CJSC Centerpolygraph, 2016 .-- 383 p. - ISBN 978-5-9524-5198-8 .
• Dyakonov I. M. Assyro-Babylonian sources on the history of Urartu // Bulletin of ancient history. - Moscow, 1951. - No. 2 - 4 .
• Piotrovsky B. B. Van Kingdom (Urartu) / Otv. ed. I.A. Orbeli . - Moscow: Publishing House of Oriental Literature, 1959. - 286 p. - 3500 copies.
• Zimansky P. Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State. - Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1985. - (Studies in ancient oriental civilizations). - ISBN 0-918986-41-9 .