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Article: Travels among the antiquities of eastern Anatolia.
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- September 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HIGH on a hillside, above the derelict remains of Tushpa is a plaque commemorating the Persian king Xerxes who passed that way en route to his failed invasion of Greece in 480 BC. It is written in the wedge-shaped cuneiform script invented here and used throughout the Persian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. On the hilltop stands a ruined castle originating in the ninth century BC and added to by Ottoman and Armenian architects.
Tushpa, capital of the Urartian Empire, is said to have been one of the most attractive settlements in Anatolia. It was home to some 80,000 Armenians and Kurds until destroyed in the battle for independence (1915-20). Tushpa was never ...