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Erebuni Fortress, Armenia

Jimmy Walder

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Among the earliest and biggest towns there was Yerebuni situated on Arin-berd hill (the south-eastern outskirt of what is now Yerevan), a major administrative and economic center of the northern part of the country. According to the Khorkhor cuneiform record and two other identical records found in the citadel, Yerebuni was built by Argishti I in 782 B.C. (this date is considered that of the foundation of Yerevan). In honour of founding the city, a painted wooden figurine of an armed warrior was made, with a cuneiform inscription on a bronze pedestal. This confirms the significance of Yerebuni as an important military stronghold of the country. This small sculpture is an interesting specimen of Urartu art.

Yerebuni, built after the pattern of Urartu settlements, had a rather clear-cut layout. Town neighborhoods were situated at the foot of a nearly 65-m high hill crowned with the citadel which was the architectural dominant of the surrounding locality. The citadel commanded a full view not only of the cramped town layout, but also of the Ararat plain with its settlements and the main roads leading to Yerebuni.

The configuration of the hill top determined the triangular shape of the citadels plan. The blank 12-metre high walls, which were built flush with the steep slopes of the hill and fortified with regularly spaced rectangular buttresses, gave the citadel a formidable and forbidding appearance. The entrance to the citadel was on the southeastern, more gently sloping, side. At the entrance, the walls were erected in two and three rows, which split the monolithic exterior in this part of the citadel and livened up its severe appearance to a certain extent.

The citadel comprised palaces, houses of worship and service premises situated at various levels, depending on the hill surface, and interconnected by stairways. This, as well as the varying heights of palaces and service buildings, imparted to the citadel of Yerebuni a stepped silhouette characteristic of such structures on the Armenian upland.