"The army of the ancient Kingdom of Urartu" Topic

For information on, and drawings of, Urartu soldiers see Urartu: The Kingdom of Van, Opposition for the Assyrians, an article by Clive Naseby
and
Urartian Infantryman in Armies and Enemies of Ancient Egypt and Assyria, 3200BC to 612BC by Alan Buttery
Urartian Chief by Alan Buttery
Urartian Bronze quiver & helmet: embossed with horsemen and chariots, belonging to Sardur II, 7thC BC. State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Statuette of soldier. Urartian, 8th-7thC BC. Musée du Louvre

Druzhina
Ancient Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Thank you Druzhina, you are a virtual treasure trove for ancients gamers!

Excellent information, as usual, thanks.

Exellent images and links. Calling out for nice 28mm range instead of just using Assyrians as substitute Urartians.

I have updated the links to the British Museum. The search function is a "beta" so I may have to change them again in the future.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Colin, indeed that would be very nice but afraid its something we may not see. When both immortal miniatures and cutting edge miniatures started up I was hopeful to see later Elamites, Egyptians, Babylonians and Urartians
Produced in numbers. Immortal miniatures did cover some figures for Babylonians and Elamites but I was hoping for more and of course cutting edge never made it to the Iron Age of their ranges. I'm guessing the interest in sales and returns are not simply there but find the later time frame of the Assyrians and their enemies quite fascinating and would be quite an enjoyable period to explore.
Andy

Are the Buttery illustrations Urartrians or Medes?

Oregon01….very true it would take someone with cash for personal non profit desire. Perry range of course sell with profit as with anything they do.
Newline Designs would be possibility as he does all sculpting etc himself and cheaper set up.
Lewisgunner….does look like a Mede to me in there.

Are the Buttery illustrations Urartrians or Medes?

Do you have a source he may have used? Helmet crests like 87a are on the Bronze Gates at Balawat, showing the conquest of Urartu by Shalmaneser III in 859 BC

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

It is just fig 84 hat looks like a Mede. Tunics on Medes were longer with same over shoulder fur/skin and boots I think.
So all looking like fine Urartians unless someone like Stillman says otherwise.
Would love a 28mm army.

D, I wondered what Stillman and Tallis used that illustration for?

The illustrations by Alan Buttery may not be ethnic Uratians, but, Iranians from the western Zagros mountains.
The Iranian Warrior, 8th Century BC, in Armies of the Ancient Near East 3,000 BC to 539 BC by Nigel Stillman & Nigel Tallis is based on sculptures of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad; 'Sargon's city'), room 14, 'The Assyrians Besiege and Assault the city of Pazashi (Panzish), in 715BC'
Manna is on the map – south of Lake Urmia within the maximum extent of the Urartian kingdom, so Mannai warriors could appear in a Uratian army as auxiliaries or allies. Zikirtu is just east of Manna.
A similar source is sculptures of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad; 'Sargon's city'), room 2, 'The Assyrians capture Ganguhtu, Bit Bagaya, and Kiundau, and accept the surrender of Tikrakka', in 716BC

One man (upper right) has a shield with chevron pattern. The theory of its construction may be influenced by a Sassanid leather and reed shield, from Dura-Europos, at Yale University Art Gallery. Other Western Zagros Iranians have shields with brick or cross-hash pattern. The shield grip is shown.

Most of the defenders wear the skin-cloak on the right side. An arm hole, as suggested by Stillman & Tallis, rather than a short sleeve may be more likely. An Iranian warrior in room 2 has a skin-cloak over his left shoulder (perhaps with an arm-hole) even though he has a shield. Some Iranian prisoners have skin-cloaks with short sleeve on the left.

Only a minority of Iranians wear laced boots or patterned hems.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Exellent images and links.

Found the perfect figure to convert into Medes or Urartian provincial troops. Numidians skirmishers from Relic Miniatures

Interesting that skin cloaks one one side of the body are conventional in representations of Easterners. Is it possible that the skin cloaks are not actually worn by Medes, but are applied to them by the Assyrian sculptors to signify to their audience tgat this is a campaign in the East?

There was probably at least one eastener with a skin cloak. I can imagine an ambassador wearing one being portrayed on a sculpture, the next sculptor copies this due to a lack of a new model, etc., until it becomes a convention that a sculptor feels obliged to follow even if he has evidence of what the easteners were actually wearing.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Whatever the case may be. Will go with evidence I have and convert above figures (ordered some) into Medes/Mannai.
May do some with and without headbands and varied boot and kilt length in the one unit.
Anyone know who makes that cavalry leader above picture.

If the Medes wore tunics and skins like the images suggest, then when did they change to their Median dress? Or indeed when did the Scythians started to wear that same dress?

Seeing as the Medes are nothing more than a Scythian people who built the first empire, why would they have looked different from their parent people only to change back to the original style?

I thought that the Medes and Scythians always had the same dress, while only the Parsa (early Persians) would intermingle with the Elamites when they settled around Susa and adopted the Elamite style.

What is the earliest evidence for Scythians etc wearing trousers?

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

According to Iranicaonline.org, paragrapgh 8:
iranicaonline.org/articles/clothing-ii

"… It is possible that as early as the end of the 2nd millennium b.c.e. the migrating Iranians brought with them a costume that had been developed in Eurasia, where the climate fluctuated sharply and life depended on cattle raising and the use of the horse, particularly in fighting (Widengren, pp. 228-41; Houston, p. 160; Goetz, p. 2228; Rudenko, p. 88 and passim). It consisted of a tall cap, tight-fitting leather jacket and trousers, a long-sleeved coat, and boots. The Persians modified and adopted the Near Eastern pleated dress (Walser, p. 72; Hinz, 1969, pp. 70-79), supplementing it with a headband or a tall, fluted hat (probably derived from an Assyrian feath­ered headdress; Gow, p. 144 n. 29; Barnett, in Survey of Persian Art). Hence scholars sometimes call this style "Persian costume" and the dress of Central Asian origin "Median costume" (Schoppa, pp. 46-48). …"

Seeing as the Scythians (are general name for all Iranian peoples) came from the Eurasian steppes and and settled in and around the Zagros mountains, it sounds more likely that the Assyrians kept using the representation of the older indiginous Zagros hilltribes to mark the Scythians.

Just like the Achaemenids did on their wall decorations, they kept using the Elamite dress while clearly they had taken up the Median dress.

And then this article:

sciencenews.org/article/first-pants-worn-horse-riders-3000-years-ago

"… Earlier research on mummies from several Tarim Basin sites, led by Mair, identified a 2,600-year-old individual known as Cherchen Man who wore burgundy trousers probably made of wool. Trousers of Scythian nomads from West Asia date to roughly 2,500 years ago. …"