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The Place of Urartu in First-Millennium B.C. Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Maurits van Loon
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Extract

Although there has been much speculation about Urartian trade and the influence it might have had on countries to the West, I hope to show there is no evidence for such exports. On the contrary, Urartu seems to have been the receiver of some goods made in the South-West (either through trade or through plunder or imposition of tribute) and the producer of other goods which found their way to the North-east. The points of this paper have been made before, but in the face of new contentions to the contrary, it may be useful to restate them. Among small objects from north Syria commonly found in Urartu one might mention faience scaraboids with the emblem of the moon god of Harran.

The hypothesis that Urartian goods were widely traded to Greece and Italy through Syrian ports or overland via Phrygia is mainly based on the appearance, at a number of Greek and Italian sites, of copper or bronze basins with sets of four carrying-rings fixed by means of attachments in the shape of “sirens”, i.e. male or female busts rising out of a circle with bird's wings and tail. The most common obviously non-Greek and non-Italian type of female siren is characterized by a squat neckless head with thick short curls, huge eyes and nose, puckered mouth and receding chin.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1977 , pp. 229 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1977

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References

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