Urartu reemerged in Assyrian language inscriptions in the ninth century BC as a powerful northern rival to the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The Nairi states and tribes became unified kingdom under King Arame of Urartu (c. 860–843 BC), whose capitals, first at Sugunia and then at Arzashkun, were captured by the Assyrians under the Neo-Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III.

Urartologist Paul Zimansky speculated that the Urartians, or at least their ruling family after Arame, may have emigrated northwest into the Lake Van region from their religious capital of Musasir.

His son, Ispuini (c. 820–800 BC) annexed the neighbouring state of Musasir, which became an important religious centre of the Urartian Kingdom, and introduced the cult of Ḫaldi.

After conquering Musasir, Ispuini was in turn attacked by Shamshi-Adad V. His co-regent and subsequent successor, Menua (c. 800–785 BC) also enlarged the kingdom greatly and left inscriptions over a wide area.

[44] Urartu reached the highest point of its military might under Menua's son Argishti I (c. 785–760 BC), becoming one of the most powerful kingdoms of ancient Near East.

The main temple at Musasir was sacked, and the Urartian king Rusa I was crushingly defeated by Sargon II at Lake Urmia.

This, in turn, helped Urartu enter a long period of development and prosperity, which continued through the reign of Argishti's son Rusa II (685–645 BC).

As a result, it became dependent on Assyria, as evidenced by Rusa II's son Sarduri III (645–635 BC) referring to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as his "father".

In 612 BC, the Median king Cyaxares the Great together with Nabopolassar of Babylon and the Scythians conquered Assyria after it had been irreversibly weakened by civil war.

[62] According to Herodotus, the Alarodians (Alarodioi) were part of the 18th Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and formed a special contingent in the grand army of Xerxes I.

Kayalıdere Castle is one of the important centers that enabled the Urartian kingdom to control the surrounding regions from Lake Van to the west.

[80] Inspired by the writings of the medieval Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi (who had described Urartian works in Van and attributed them to the legendary Ara the Beautiful and Queen Semiramis), the French scholar Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin suggested that his government send Friedrich Eduard Schulz, a German professor, to the Van area in 1827 on behalf of the French Oriental Society.

In the late 1840s Sir Austen Henry Layard examined and described the Urartian rock-cut tombs of Van Castle, including the Argishti chamber.

The first systematic collection of Urartian inscriptions, and thus the beginning of Urartology as a specialized field dates to the 1870s, with the campaign of Sir Archibald Henry Sayce.

In 1916, the Russian scholars Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr and Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli, excavating at the Van fortress, uncovered a four-faced stele carrying the annals of Sarduri II.

Excavations by the American scholars Kirsopp and Silva Lake in 1938-40 were cut short by World War II, and most of their finds and field records were lost when a German submarine torpedoed their ship, the SS Athenia.

Beginning in 1956 Charles A. Burney identified and sketch-surveyed many Urartian sites in the Lake Van area and, from 1959, a Turkish expedition under Tahsin Özgüç excavated Altintepe and Arif Erzen.

In 1976, an Italian team led by Mirjo Salvini finally reached the Kelishin stele, accompanied by a heavy military escort.

Oktay Belli resumed excavation of Urartian sites on Turkish territory: in 1989 Ayanis, a 7th-century BC fortress built by Rusas II of Urartu, was discovered 35 km north of Van.

The style, which developed regional variations, shows a distinct character, partly because of the greater use of stone compared to neighbouring cultures.

The typical temple was square, with stone walls as thick as the open internal area but using mud brick for the higher part.

These were placed at the highest point of a citadel and from surviving depictions were high, perhaps with gabled roofs; their emphasis on verticality has been claimed as an influence of later Christian Armenian architecture.

[84] The art of Urartu is especially notable for fine lost-wax bronze objects: weapons, figurines, vessels including grand cauldrons that were used for sacrifices, fittings for furniture, and helmets.

Archaeology has produced relatively few examples of the jewellery in precious metals that the Assyrians boasted of carrying off in great quantities from Musasir in 714 BC.

[90] A number of the gods mentioned in the Gate of Mehr may be of Armenian origins,[85] including Ara (or Arwaa),[91] and possibly the goddess Selardi (although there is confusion about this deity's gender and name, some believe it is to be read Melardi).

Examples of the Urartian language have survived in many inscriptions, written in the Assyrian cuneiform script, found throughout the area of the Kingdom of Urartu.

[99] According to Zimansky:[100] Far from being grounded on long standing cultural uniformities, [Urartu] was merely a superstructure of authority, below which there was plenty of room for the groups to manifest in the Anatolia of Xenophon to flourish.

[71][30] The presence of toponyms, tribal names, and deities of probable Proto-Armenian etymologies which are attested in records left by Urartian kings, such as Uelikuni, Uduri-Etiuni, Abiliani, and Arzashkun, the personal names Arame and Diaṣuni, and the deities Arṣibedini and Aniqu, further supports the presence of an Armenian speaking population in at least the northern regions of Urartu.

[citation needed] A complementary theory, suggested by Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov in 1984, places the Proto-Indo-European homeland (the location where Indo-European would have emerged from) in the Armenian Highlands, which would entail the presence of proto-Armenians in the area during the entire lifetime of the Urartian state.