Artashat

🔍 Research history

As the capital of the united Armenian state, Artashat was founded by King Artashes I (189-160 BC) (in Greek Artashat means joy of Artashes). Located in the densely populated fertile Ararat valley, at the crossroads of trade routes, Artashat has become one of the significant and famous cities not only in Armenia, but also in the Hellenistic East. By building Artashat, Artashes makes it a princely city. Soon, Artashat became one of the important centers of international trade in the Middle East and played the role of the unifying capital of Armenian lands for almost five hundred years. Roman general Lucullus considered Artashat “Armenian Carthage” disobedient to Rome and threatened to destroy it like Carthage. In 58 AD Roman troops captured Artashat under the leadership of general Corbulo, and in 59 they burned and destroyed it. The reconstruction works of the city began In 66 AD during the reign of Tiridates I (52-88), with the funds provided by Emperor Nero. In this regard the city was named Neronia in 67 AD, but it was soon forgotten. During the Arsacid dynasty, Artashat was repeatedly destroyed by Romans and Persians. Roman troops captured Artashat in 116 led by Emperor Trajan, but they had to leave a year later. Artashat was again besieged and occupied by the Romans in 163. In 164 the capital was moved from partially destroyed Artashat to Vagharshapat. Artashat continued to maintain its role as an important trade center until the Armenian King Khosrov Kotak (332-338) moved his court to Dvin because of the swamps and bad air around it. The army of King Shapuh II of Sasanian Iran invaded Armenia in the 360s, besieged and destroyed Artashat, captured the population. In the VII century a small castle and a village remained on the site of a once large city, with the inhabitants engaged in production of Ararat cochineal and craft of dyeing threads and fabrics with it. Then, even its location was not known for a long time, because the Metsamor river, which was a really big river in ancient times and took the waters of the Metsamor (Sevjri), Kasakh, Hrazdan and Azat rivers, joined Araks near Artashat, later changing its course joins only Kasakh and mixes with Araks. In 1967 while laying a water line in Pokr Vedi village, Latin inscriptions engraved on five stone slabs were found to become the reason for the ancient capital’s excavation. The expedition of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography started its excavations in 1970 to reveal that the citadel and central districts of the city were located on ten rocky hills making up the great Khor Virap hill group. There are two more hills 350-400m to the south-east of that hill group, where traces of walls have been preserved, and the city districts were spread to the north-east and south to the plain in front of them.

🧱 Archaeological description

Location
It was located in the Vostan Armenian province of the Great Armenian Ayrarat world, at the confluence of the Araks and Metsamor rivers (later the latter changed its course and flows into the Araks from the north-west of Artashat).

Stratigraphy
The excavations revealed that the hills of Artashat were inhabited in the early agricultural period. This is evidenced by the V–IV millennia BC settlement traces found on Hills VII and VIII.

The discovery of an Urartian city in the territory of ancient Artashat — previously unknown to science — was quite a surprise. The Urartian city, with its citadel located on Hill II (the highest at 70 meters), occupies a vast area. It extended east from the hills of Khor Virap to Lusarat village. It is quite possible that this great city was one of the first Urartian strongholds on the left bank of the Araks River.

According to researchers, there are four periods that reflect the main stages of the city’s life:

Period I – Includes three main phases (Artashes I period):

1. Stage 1: 180 BC – 66 BC
2. Stage 2: 66 BC – 58 AD
3. Stage 3: AD 58 – AD 66

Period II – AD 60 – AD 160
Period III – AD 160 – AD 330
Period IV – AD 330 – AD 360

The territorial division of the city according to its functional significance has an interesting picture:

1. Palace-administrative
2. Religious
3. Craftsman-trader
4. Military-defense
5. …and others, also based on the social structure and legal status of the population.

Architecture: Materials on the city architecture are diverse. The stones were fixed only by sticks placed in horizontal dovetail grooves. The stones have a rustic treatment that differs from the pre-hellenistic one. This kind of stone arrangement gave the wall a powerful, huge look, and the play of light and shadow left a beautiful impression. The hellenistic period temple and platform were probably destroyed by Corbulo in 59. During the reign of Tiridates I (52–88), a new platform was built with a new temple.

Defense system

One of the most important elements of the city structure is the defense system. All the hills of Khor Virap were enclosed, but the walls were not built separately from each other, but formed one extensive, powerful defense system. Walls close to each other or encircling the adjacent hills were connected by corridors built with parallel walls. The wall traces are visible around all the hills, but have been preserved in fragments. The walls were built of local reddish, hard stone and gray rough marble, and topped with raw brickwork. The walls were reinforced with retaining walls and semicircular towers. The wall thickness varies from 2.80 meters to 4.80 meters in different parts. Artashat was also protected by a water moat. Directly in front of the city, the main road with the Taperakan bridge built over the Araks was directed to the south-west, towards Tigranakert. Through the Metsamor river bridge, the route was directed to the north-west to Vagharshapat, and to the south-east to Persia. A fairly high level of three main branches of the city’s economy: agriculture, craft production and trade were typical to Artashat. The urban population formed an autonomous community that owned lands around the city and in the city settlements – farms. According to Strabo and Cornelius Tacitus, Artashat had long walls. A part of the walls with a length of about 4500-5000 m was opened and studied by excavations. The length of the Artashat walls is more than 10,000 m. All the hills are part of the common defense system. In addition to the general fence, the citadel has a separate one with 50-55 m height compared to the field. It is the Urartian wall, restored and adapted to the requirements of the hellenistic military art, the corner buttresses were replaced by round towers (diameter: 13-15 m), and the entrance was lowered to the slope leading to the I hill and protected from the wings by two towers (diameter: 13 m. ). Skillfully using the site possibilities, the walls were built in the form of broken lines, like the walls of the hellenistic period of Miletus, Ephesus, Pergamon, Priene, Magnesia on the Meander, Notium, Dura-Europos, which served as towers. The walls still played an important role in the defense, but the main role belonged to the towers with archery and catapult machines installed on them. Bombs of various sizes were found: most of them were specifically made.

The city was famous for its structures and architectural monuments. It had an extensive defensive complex consisting of walls and ramparts and a citadel with a royal palace. In Artashat there was a money house, a treasury and a customs house, several bridges, the oldest and most famous among them was “Taperakan” or “Artashat Bridge” over Yeraskh. In 53 BC, during the reign of Artavazd II, Euripides’ tragedy “The Women of Bacchus” was presented in Greek in Artashat.

🔨 Findings

Excavations revealed one of the fortresses of the citadel, many military residences, blacksmith-armor workshops with various types of weapons, silver coins of Tigran II, city drams with the seal of Seleucid Persia, Cappadocia, Pontus and Rome, as well as Artashat were found. A marble statue of a woman (I-II century BC), a broken statue leg and marble wings of goddess Victoria, frescoes and mosaics were found in Artashat. A large number of pottery, glass and metal items were also discovered, testifying to the once vibrant economic and cultural life of Artashat. Several bathhouses, an oven for making calx, and a number of accessories related to winemaking were found on the VIII hill, which suggests that it was the area of craftsmen. Oil (tar), often found in crucibles and large vessels, testifies to its usage not only in everyday life for lamps, in medicine, but also for defensive purposes as it is noted by Pliny the Elder and Dion Cassius.

🌍 Significance

Artashat was the center of the Armenian hellenistic culture, it was also one of the main centers of international trade in the ancient world. The transit trade route from the Far East to the Mediterranean coast, carrying Chinese silk and other goods, passed through the city. As it is seen in the Peutingerian guide-map (IV century AD), people coming from Matagh (Pokr Hayk), Tigranakert (Northwest of Armenia), Sebastoupolis (Koghkis), Hamadan (Iran) and Armazi (Georgia) met on the Artashat trade routes. Artashat was also known as a warehouse for transit goods, a grocery store, and a center for commercial exchanges. The international importance of Artashat was also recognized later by the imperial proclamation of Justinian I. Iamblikos from Assyria, the author of the novel “Babelonakank”, lived and worked in Artashat. Since the 2nd half of the V century Artashat was already a rural town, and in the next century it is remembered as a grange. The main reason for the decline of the city is related to the change of the course of Metsamor. During the reign of King Khosrov II of Armenia (252-about 260), the court moved to Dvin. The invasions of Persian Shapuh II (364-369) and the changes taking place in the Armenian socio-economic life at the early stage of the feudalism development also played a certain role in the fall of Artashat.

📜 Traditional legends 

According to Greek historians, Artashat was built on the advice and instruction of the Carthaginian general Hannibal.

📚 Sources

Literature 

1. Khachatryan Zh. 1981, Artashat II, Ancient burial grounds (1971-1977), Archaeological Excavations in Armenia, N 17, Yerevan, ASSR Academy of Sciences ed., 200 pages. 
2. History of Armenian Architecture 1996, H. 1, p. ed. C. Tiratsyan, Yerevan, “Science”, 298 pages. 
3. Tonikyan A. 1987,The Architecture of Artashat Late Hellenistic Residential Houses (Based on the Excavated Materials of the I Hill), Lraber, N 9, pp. 68-73.
4. Arakelyan B. 1982, Artashat I, The main results of the excavations in 1970-1977, Archaeological excavations in Armenia, N16, Yerevan, ed. Academy of Sciences
   ArmSSR, 71 p. 
5. Ter-Martirosov F. 1973, Terracotta from Artashat, Bulletin of Social Sciences, N 4, p. 82-91.
6. Khachatryan Zh., Kanetsyan A.1974, Stratigraphy of the VIII hill of Artashat, Bulletin of Social Sciences, N9, p. 76-91.
7. Lichtenberger A., Schreiber T., Zardaryan M.  2022, The wall decoration of a plastered building in Artaxata-Artashat in the Ararat plain of Armenia, Project: The
   Armenian-German Artaxata Project (AGAP).

🏛️ List of Monuments 

Ararat 3.49/2