Moe and Irene's RTW blog: Cavustepe, an Excellent Introduction to Ancient Turkey

The ruins of Cavusteppe, an ancient Uruartian citadel near Van, Turkey, are visually quite plain. The site is only partially excavated; and much of what was found has been covered over for preservation or, in some cases, removed to a museum. What makes a visit so special is learning about how and when it was built and used. We were particularly fortunate to have had the site caretaker, Mehmet Kusman, who was personally involved in the excavation of Cavustepe, guide us through the castle.

We visited the complex on the the lower left, which occupies the top of a ridge over a kilometer long. The upper castle is actually on a separate hilltop.

The Citadel was built from 764 to 735, BCE, by King Sardur II, son of Argisti. It was constructed using large stone blocks hauled many miles and assembled perfectly geometrically without using mortar. It is amazing that a project of this scope and quality could be successful over 2700 years ago.

These stones form the first part of the fortified wall between parts 2 and 3 in the diagram above.

A little further along the way, you can see parts of the castle up on top of the ridge to the right and part of a set of "steps" going down to the valley to the left.

In the next view, the steps are closer; and you see a bit of the Gupindar Valley below. It was here that the Urartians of Cavusteppe grew crops, particularly large quantities of grains.

This modern view of the valley shows the fields planted with grains and other crops. It also shows part of a long irrigation canal. This canal, built just a few years ago, replaces the 35 kilometer irrigation canal the Urartians built in the 8th century BCE to water their crops. That canal delivered water to these fields right up to the time that the concrete replacement was built.

Inside the walled citadel, archeologist have identified the remains of 105 giant pithoi, earthen jugs, half buried in the ground. What appear to be ring in the sand in the photo below are the buried lower halves of a group of these jugs. After excavation, they were filled in again for preservation.

This illustration shows what the jugs were like. Each was 240 cm high and had a capacity of approximately one ton of grain.

Mr Kusman shows us some of the excavated original grain from ~2700 years ago.

Nearby there was a series of underwater cisterns used to store collected rainwater.

Irene is photographing one.

Two huge mortars were found. . .

as well as a large vessel for crushing grapes to make wine.

This excavation was the wine storage area.

Slightly further along the ridge were the remains of the Temple of Haldi built by King Sardur II , as a way of honoring his father. Several of the blocks on either side of the doorway are made of andesite, an igneous rock which is harder than the sandstone used for most of the construction.

This is part of the cuneiform text of the Urartian language the king had inscribed in 2 blocks just to the left of the doorway. Mr. Kusman is one approximately 25 remaining people who can still speak and write the Urartian language. He translated these panels to our guide, who further translated them into English for us.