Storage of agricultural activities and products of the village of Urartian in The Van Lake Basin

Urartian Kingdom, 9-7 BCE. The Van Lake Basin is one of the important kingdoms established in Anatolia, the center of which is the center of Anatolia. As a result of the expansion policies pursued by the Urartian kings, they organized quite a few expeditions and extended the borders of the kingdom to the Euphrates in the west, Iran Azerbaijan in the east and Armenia in the north. The Urartian State has made significant investments to meet the needs of people such as housing and nutrition in the regions where they are ruled. Among these is the construction of castles near the fertile plains. They built water channels to make the plains near the castle efficient. In this way, agricultural and animal activities in the plains were made more efficient. The Van Lake Basin, the center of the Urartian State, had a rather mountainous geography and a limited number of agricultural lands. This feature of the Van Lake Basin was a very negative condition for agricultural activities. Therefore, the Urartian State has followed quite important policies to increase its agricultural activities. At the beginning of these policies, in the short and dry summer months, they built water dams, ponds and canals to irrigate agricultural land. Thanks to these policies, the Urartians have made fertile harvesting periods by making the arid lands wet. People who have been migrated to these agricultural lands as spoils should be placed in order to be employed in agricultural activities. Thus, these people have first eliminated the problem of shelter and then they are expected to be employed in the vicinity of agricultural lands and the necessary manpower is met. Urartians also gave importance to the production of agricultural equipment for use in agricultural activities. The majority of agricultural equipment is made of iron. However, due to the low resistance of iron in the soil, very few agricultural tools have survived to the present day. Waist shovel, sickle, pitcher, plow and anchors are some of the agricultural tools used by the Urartians. When these agricultural tools are examined, Urartians used all the agricultural tools to be used in the process from cultivation to harvesting. According to the information obtained from the cuneiform written documents, it is known that the Urartian agricultural tools were distributed to the farmers by the state. The majority of the products of Urartians obtained from agricultural activities were composed of cereals (wheat, barley, potato, etc.). These products were followed by legumes (chickpeas, lentils, etc.). In addition, various fruits (apples, pears, grapes, cherries, etc.) were also grown. Urartu were especially important in the content of this. There are inscriptions about the establishment of vineyards. The Urartian Kingdom carried water to the land where irrigated farming could be done with the help of channels. It is seen that some of the channels they have made are still used today. The most important of these is the Minua Canal. This channel, which carries water from Gürpınar to Tuşpa, has largely met the water demand of the southern section of Van Plain. Urartians benefited from natural water resources as well as benefiting from canals, dams and ponds for irrigation activities. The Urartians maintained the agricultural products obtained in agricultural activities in the warehouse structures they built. Urartu State, the palace, temples and so on. they planned the construction of warehouse structures with public buildings. Urartian Van Lake Basin in the basin of Çavuştepe, Ayanis, Upper and Lower Anzaf, Yoncatepe, Toprakkale near the plains of the establishment of agricultural activities have shown that they attach importance.