Note 63 — Chapter IV · VAN

Messrs. Belck and Lehmann commence the sequence: 1. Lutipris, 2. Sarduris I., 3. Arame, 4. Sarduris II., thus attributing to their Sarduris I. the inscriptions which record the construction of the walls from the rock of Van to the harbour. They suppose a Sarduris II., son of Arame, as the antagonist of Shalmaneser II., and suggest that Sarduris I. was the contemporary of Ashur-nasir-pal II. (885–860 B.C.) (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 1897, p. 201). This arrangement throws back Lutipris to about 900 B.C. They promise us an essay upon the subject (see Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1894, p. 486; Z. Assyr. 1897, pp. 200, 201, 202). At present I do not feel convinced by the grounds they have brought forward. No inscriptions of this Sarduris II. have been discovered; nor does any mention appear to be made of works by a predecessor of the same name or by Arame in the inscriptions near the Tabriz gate at Van which they have discovered (see under Ispuinis infra). Of Lutipris no inscriptions exist; he is only known as the father of Sarduris. Pending further enquiry the hypothesis of Professor Sayce seems to me to hold the field: “I am more inclined to conjecture that Sarduris I. was the leader of a new dynasty; the ill success of Arrame in his wars with the Assyrians forming the occasion for his overthrow ... the introduction of a foreign mode of writing into the country looks like one of those innovations which mark the rise of new dynasties in the East. The consolidation of the power of Darius Hystaspis was, we may remember, accompanied by the introduction of the cuneiform alphabet of Persia” (J.R.A.S. 1882, p. 406). To this I should like to add that it seems consonant with the true order of events that not until after the defeat of Arame was the site of Van most happily selected as a sure stronghold against Assyrian attacks—a choice which was largely instrumental in producing the extraordinary development of the northern kingdom under Ispuinis, Menuas, and Argistis. ↑