«Վան» - Սերգեյ ՎԱՐԴԱՆՅԱՆ

Sergei Vardanyan's article "Van" is devoted to the history of study and formation of one of the oldest cities in the world — the legendary Urartian and Armenian capital of Tushpa-Van — from the first European research expeditions of the 19th century to the earliest epochs of the city's royal history.

Introduction and Methodology
The author constructs the narrative on two planes: the history of the scholarly discovery of Van cuneiform writing, and the historical reconstruction of the ancient city's life proper. The source base consists of the testimonies of European travelers and archaeologists, the records of Garegin Srvandztyants, the works of Movses Khorenatsi, Pavstos Buzand, and Tovma Artsruni, as well as data from Assyrian and Urartian cuneiform texts.

The History of Deciphering Van Cuneiform
The author traces the chronology of scholarly discoveries:

the first discoverer is considered to be Friedrich Schulz (1827–1829), who was killed by Kurds after copying dozens of inscriptions;
Henry Rawlinson and Austen Henry Layard continued copying and studying the monuments in the 1830s–1850s;
British consul Clayton and Hormuzd Rassam conducted excavations in the 1870s, accompanied, according to the testimony of Srvandztyants, by mass plundering of finds and their illegal resale;
the final decipherment of the cuneiform script belongs to the Oxford professor A. Sayce (1882).

Separately noted is the contribution of Armenian researchers — Mesrop Smbatyants, and later Ter-Avetisyan, Kaznakov, Iosif Orbeli, and Nikolai Marr, who worked in Van during the years of the First World War.

The Legend of Shamiram and Historical Reality
The author compares Khorenatsi's legend of Queen Shamiram (Semiramis), to whom popular memory attributed the building of the city, with the actual deeds of the Urartian kings — above all Sarduri I, who founded the temple of the god Shivini, and Menua I, the creator of the grandiose 70–80-kilometer canal and the famous "hanging gardens" of Van.

The Political History of Tushpa-Van
The city's fate is traced through the centuries:

the defeat of Sarduri II by Tiglath-Pileser III (743 BC) and the transfer of the capital to Rusahinili;
the loss and restoration of Armenia's independence under Yervand Sakavakyats, who renamed the city Yervandavan;
the flourishing of Van under Tigran the Great;
the destruction of the city by the Persian shah Shapur II in 368–369, accompanied by the mass deportation of the population into captivity.

Conclusion
The article's key conclusion is that the history of Van represents an unbroken chain of destruction and revival: despite repeated conquests, deportations of the population, and the loss of archaeological heritage due to uncontrolled excavations and the plundering of finds, the city invariably restored its role as the most important political and cultural center of Armenian statehood. The author indicates that the narrative of Van's further fate as the Armenian capital will be continued in the next issue of the publication.