The Anzaf Fortresses and The Gods of Urartu

The pascinating pictorial scenes on pieces of a bronze shield from a room on the west side of the Haldi Temple in the Upper Anzaf Fortress, discovered in 1995, add greatly to our knowledge of Urartian religion and art. During the fire caused by a Scyhtian attack in the late seventh century B.C. objects and weapons of bronze and iron stored in this small room became molten and distorted, a large portion turning to slag. In recent years conservation of this mass of molten metal, weighing more than 13 kilograms, a number of bronze and iron objects and weapons have been recovered and preserved for the benefit of science. In particular, seven votive rings of cast bronze with cuneiform inscriptions from the co-regency of King Ispuini, Menua and Inuspua has added much to the poorly known political history in the early period of the Urartian Kingdom.