Gurpınar Plain irrgation systems in Urartian Period

Urartian 9-7. Between the centuries, Eastern Anatolia, Trans caucasia and north western Iran have ruled. In the beginning, the people who were semi-nomadic, settled and built cities. A large part of there gion where the Urartian State wasestablished is covered with springs separatedby mountain ranges and valleys. Thew intersare cold and long, and summer saredry and short. The Urartian people spent a large part of their lives on developing agriculture. The best examples of this are the archaeologia calandinscriptions found in the excavatedareas. Urartian State built dams, ponds and canals in necess ary placess othat agri culturall and scould be more efficient because of thelack of rain falland limited water resources in Urartu.Gürpınar Plain, one of them ostimportantagri culturall and, is located 22 km. tothesouth west .It is located in many Urartian settlementareas around the plain. The mostimportant of these is the Çavuştepe Fortress located at the western end of the abundant mountain range in the Gürpınar Plain. The ware houses found here show that this is an agri cultural center. In thein scription on the temple of Irmuşi'ni in Çavuştepe Fortress, King II. Sarduri mentioned that he opened a channel here. There are two channels detected. The first channel passes from the south of the fortress and the second channel passes through the south of the plain. These channels were madetoirri gate their rigated sections of the plain. The cereal products obtained from this plain werekept in the ware houses of Çavuştepe Fortress. Even to day, this plain is an agricultural center. KeyWords :Agriculture,Çavuştepe, Gürpınar, İrrigation, Urartian Quantity of Page :93 Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Rafet ÇAVUŞOĞLU