📷 Hanife Altan · Pexels
Where in the world
Türkiye
Van Fortress
Urartian · Türkiye
Field notes
- civilizations
- Urartian
- types
- Fortress
- occupied
- 900 BCE — 600 BCE
- country
- Türkiye
The site
Van Fortress is a massive stone stronghold in eastern Turkey, raised by the Urartian kingdom that held the highlands around Lake Van between roughly 900 and 600 BCE. Perched on a long rocky bluff, it commands the surrounding plain from a natural defensive height. For the field explorer it stands as one of the great surviving works of Urartian military engineering, a citadel cut and built into living rock.
