The Urartian Cemetery at Igdyr

Abstract

In 1943 the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian S.S.R. published at Tiflis, as Part XIII.B of the Bulletin of the Georgian Government Museums, a book of 171 pages by the late B. A. Kuftin (1892–1953), entitled Urartskii “kolymbarii” u podoshvy Ararata i Kuro-Arakskii Éneolit [An Urartian “Columbarium” on the slopes of Ararat and the Copper Age of the Kur-Araxes basin]. The terminus technicus “columbarium” (Latin = a pigeon-cot) is translated in German as “Urnenhalle”. More appropriate here would be to call it an “Urn-field” but “columbarium” is retained here as having no adequate English translation. In the original the Russian text is followed by a version in Georgian and a very brief English summary. This book in fact contains two essays, the first dealing with the “columbarium”, the second with the Copper Age remains under the lava to the south of the “columbarium”, and called the “Clay Citadel”. We are here only concerned with the first.