page_title: Van, Turkey
section_title: Urartu
hierarchical_section_title: Van, Turkey / History / Urartu
caption_attribution_description: English: A large cuneiform inscription found on the south side of the Van Castle hill, four kilometres west of modern-day Van, in eastern Turkey. It's several metres tall and wide, 25 centuries old and the message comes from the Persian king Xerxes. In Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite, it says (roughly): "Ahuramazda is the great god, the greatest god who created the sky and created the land and created humans Who gave prosperity to the humans Who made Xerxes king King of many kings, being the only ruler of the totality of all lands “I am Xerxes, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the lands, king of all the languages, king of the great and large land, the son of king Darius the Achaemenian” The king Xerxes says: “the king Darius, my father, praised be Ahuramazda, made a lot of good, and this mountain, he ordered to work its cliff and he wrote nothing on it so, me, I ordered to write here. May Ahuramazda protect me, with all the gods and so my kingdom and what I have done." Türkçe: "Büyük tanrı Ahuramazda gökyüzünü, yeryüzünü ve insanları yaratan; insanlara refah veren, krallar kralı Serhas'ı yaratıp onu bütün toprakların hükümdarı yapan en muazzam tanrıdır." "Ben Serhas, muhteşem kral, krallar kralı, toprakların kralı, tüm dillerin kralı, büyük ve geniş diyarların kralı, kral Darius Ahameniş'in oğlu" Kral Serhas diyor: "babam kral Darius bir çok şey yaparak Ahuramazda'ya şükürlerini sundu, bu dağdaki kayalıklarda çalışılmasını emretti ve kayalara hiçbir şey yazmadı. ve böylelikle buraya yazılmasını emrettim. Ahuramazda beni, krallığımı ve tüm yaptıklarımı bütün tanrılarla beraber korusun."
context_page_description: Van is a city in eastern Turkey's Van Province, located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as Tushpa, the capital of the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BC to the 6th century BC, and later as the center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. Today, Van has a Kurdish majority and a sizeable Turkish minority.
  In 2010 the official population figure for Van was 367,419, but many estimates put it much higher with a 1996 estimate stating 500,000 and former Mayor Burhan Yengun is quoted as saying it may be as high as 600,000.
context_section_description: Under the ancient name of Tushpa, Van was the capital of the Urartian kingdom in the 9th century BC. The early settlement was centered on the steep-sided bluff now known as Van Castle (Van Kalesi), close to the edge of Lake Van and a few kilometers west of the modern city. Here have been found Urartian cuneiform inscriptions dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BC. In the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Babylonian is called Armenia in Old Persian.
  The name 'Van' comes from the Urartian Biaina.
caption: Inscription of Xerxes the Great on the cliffs below Van castle.
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