From the mountains to the fortresses the birth and development of urartian stelae and “shrines of the stelae”

The many highly distinctive aspects of the kingdom of Bia/Urartu include its cultic architecture. Over the course of some decades during the definitive formation of the Urartian state in the second half of the 9th century BCE, structures with cultic purposes were introduced, which underwent notable changes over the course of a few years, connected to the processes of definition of the Urartian religion. Of particular importance among these places of worship are those known as the ‘shrines of the stelae’, knowledge of which has increased exponentially in recent years thanks to reconsiderations of material published in the past and new discoveries that have occurred. The creation of these complexes appears directly related to the systematic use, especially in the first part of Urartu’s history, of inscribed and uninscribed steles. This paper examines the birth and evolution of the Urartian stelae and their use for the creation of particular places of worship, with a review of all the known direct and indirect epigraphic and archaeological evidence regarding them. In particular, the process that led to the transfer at the end of the 9th century BCE of all the Urartian religious structures from the mountains into the fortresses – that is, the change from ‘extra-urban’ sanctuaries to ‘urban’ sanctuaries – is reconstructed.