PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF RADIOCARBON DATING ON AYANIS CASTLE

Ayanis City was destroyed by a great earthquake; almost sealed by the collapse of monumental mudbrick structures, it became uninhabitable. Therefore, the city remained intact to the present day, complete with the original artefacts. Ayanis Castle presents us with many problems in spite of its rich cultural inventory: When was the castle/city established?; When and how was it destroyed?; Is there a relationship between the end of the fortress and that of the Urartian kingdom?; Are the end of the castle and the death of Argišti’s son Rusa simultaneous?; Should discussion of a “Post-Urartu period” ensue? Until now, there were two basic criteria used to date Ayanis: inscriptions and dendrochronological analysis, as no radiocarbon analysis had been carried out for Ayanis. In recent fieldwork, radiocarbon samples were taken in order to resolve the questions highlighted above. In this study, the first results of these analyses will be presented.