The Kingdom of Urartu is widely known for their skill with metals, particularly bronze. These pages will provide an overview into the types of belts that were made, what data has been collected, what problems the data pose, the questions and characteristics of style, iconography, function and methodology.
Bronze is a combination of copper and tin.
The copper was found within the borders of Urartu, but tin was not. Several copper slag dumps have been found today that indicate that bronze was made in that area. Slag is a vitreous byproduct of the melting of metals, and large quantities of these dumps have been found. Look at figure 2 and figure 3 for examples. Below is a map of the region indicating the possible sites from which the Urartians could have obtained copper.